I liked your comments. I mean, if you were blowing off work or spending time with family to game I could see a problem, but if you are taking time like I do to sit for an hour and play a game after everyone has gone to bed and relax and enjoy the game play the art and the story etc I cannot think of a better hour to myself unless I am drawing.

is 43 and also ordered a xbox one day one owner and my nieces always give me the eyes to say your not a kid anymore why are you playing kid games, i just laugh at them and say because a i been gaming for long time both my parents are gamers so it runs in my blood that i have to have something to do or i get bored…

My wife i love her to death and i am glad she actually a gamer, like me she’s 35 and Japanese, so it runs in her blood as well when we was dating she had game station{before they changed the console name to nintendo} and me and her would always play fighting games against each other!

You’re right it probably won’t go away. I don’t let people know about my guilty pleasure either. But with gaming systems like the wii in rest homes and families playing together, helps me to believe maybe many don’t play because they feel they are too complex and not that it’s just immature to play them.
I work for a major cellular retailer and i once had this 70-ish year old lady come in my store and her only problem with her cellphone was that her “Hay Day” game froze and she didn’t want to lose her high score! Lol! True story.

Anyway…it’s hard to ignore history, context, and culture when it comes to forming social opinions, and gaming has a lot of embarrassing and still typically true preconceptions attached to it. I don’t see how it can realistically go away.

Gaming is different because it is seen as playing with toys. Children used to buy GI Joe action figures and make them fight imaginary battles. They would also run around the yard playing war games pretending to shoot each other. Video games came along and made this same
play much better. Instead of GI Joe, a boy could play Contra. It was no longer all in the imagination; there was AI and built in rules. It provided a much better simulation.

Light hearted games fit somewhere between Playschool and Disney presentation wise, while almost all of the games rated as Mature are typically anything but mature in their presentation. They remind me when I was a kid / teen and most boys thought that explosions, weapons of any type, bloody wounds, skulls, wizards, dragons, ninjas, etc were all awesome.

Most Mature rated games are rated Mature for the juvenile way they depict violence and other subject matter. Woah we have a chainsaw bayonet on our assault rifle… awesome! I don’t hate that attitude at all, but it is something most guys outgrow beyond their teen years.

You said there are an abundance of games that appeal to adults and show a picture of Bloodborne. But to me that games does not appeal to adults. It looks like a game for teen boys. It reminds me of having battles with action figures; its like playing with digital toys.

I am not saying this is right or wrong but I believe this is why people view adult gamers the way they do.

The best case that I can make of a divisive factor is one of imagination. I find that acquaintances of mine that prefer the mundane without the occult or fantasy(realistic fiction/sports/nonfiction), tend to not appreciate gaming. Those that like more fantastical or thought provoking fiction, tend to be those that do appreciate it. I don’t blame those people, we are made the way we are. However, I do think that the ability and desire to see an unfamiliar world, character or interaction as something real enough to care about is what sets the groups apart. Would you rather be told something believable, or be involved in something fantastic?

Thoughts?

2. Part of the criticism to TV can be applied to games. The thing is that your brain isn’t working to imaging or create, like with a book, is like you are getting everything chewed, for your brain to do just a little of processing. I say in part because there is a lot of problem solving, coordination and many other things and skills. I recommend this book: Homo Videns by Giovanni Sartori.

3. Take this as an advice. Don’t give a fuck about what other people think in this regard as long as you are happy with yourself and don’t harm anybody (including yourself).

29 year old gamer, about to get married and doing pretty good in my career (not related to videogames, sadly).

Yep, those who complain about adult gamers most likely indulge in some equivalent activity that’s probably not even as meaningful as games are.

As long as those bills are paid, the fridge is full and the family are happy then you should feel happy in enjoying gaming. Thanks for the comment man, I’m glad there are others who feel the same.

Good article.

Thanks for the comment man, you summed up the feeling so well here. Hopefully this negative stigma will go away at some point. But for now we’ll just have to stand our ground and be proud of who we are.

The double standard does exist. And here is an example that to this day still puzzled me. When i was writing up a résumé “curriculum vitae” to apply for some jobs, I was told by a professional to not write in my personal info that i was a gamer. Of course it was ok that i was a sport enthusiast and played many sport including my other passion Hockey, but gaming a no no because it would be view in a negative ways.

Puzzling that this is still the case in 2014 but not surprising.