Hoo, I think I'm getting old. What an odd thought, I haven't even introduced what I'm talking about...

So yeah, this is on modern kids and the games that they enjoy. I've recently taken to showing a friend's youngins the games that I enjoyed when they were their age, and they very, _very_, quickly complain about how difficult they are and that they want to "play a different game". I'm starting to run out of games for them to be trying, as I only ever played so many PS{,2}/NES/Wii titles back then. Everything from Jak and Daxter, Spyro (all of them btw), Super Mario Bros (1, 3, and Wii), Midnight Club 3, Burnout 3, hell, even Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, they seem to enjoy none of these, but when I put on Angry Birds (of all things), or some other shit tier mobile game, they're happy as a clam. Slightest bit of difficulty, and it's "no fun".

I suppose I leave with a plea to those that might have kids in the future that are reading this. For gods sakes don't start them off with games that have instant gratification. Please. Let the games of the past continue to be fun for future generations. Difficulty isn't a bad thing, and I don't want to see pretty much all games become "10 seconds of work for a quick dopamine hit". I'd be rather sad if we ended up losing the difficult-by-nature genres like roguelikes.

Anyway, I'm rambling now (guess I really am getting old), if you ended up reading all that, wow, but anyhow, thanks for visiting...

--tidest

P.S. From future tidest,

Fuck the notion of playing games to beat them. Turning them into checklists makes them not fun. You should play games to have fun.

There are exceptional cases, like speedrunning, but that's a bit of a metagame. The game there is not the game, but the game that you make of it.

TAS runs are actually really cool, but the programmers of those treat improving their TASes like a game.