Comments on: Dad & Doom

By: PoC

PoC — Wed, 11 May 2011 05:25:59 +0000

Out of all the johnny-come-latelys to this disussion, I declare myself the jonnyest.

Thanks for the article. I think you’ve summed up an experience that a lot of gamers have had over the years. It’s amazing to stop and think sometimes how we’ve engrained certain technologies into our heads–a century or two ago, you could have a similar gap around the experience of reading. (Although then it would probably be more a class gap. But I digress…) My father, now retired, will spend endless hours in the basement, playing round after round of computer Freecell. But he refuses to play any more “complex” game because he says it takes up too much time, and he refuses to acknowledge any irony in that statement.

I found it interesting, for me, at least, that the gaming literacy gap works in reverse as well. I’ve been trying to play the old late 1980s computer RPGs, and I’m finding it pretty impenetrable. Even when I get them to run, there’s just too many variables that I need to internalize, and too many interface quirks that, a few decades later, I just take for granted. Even making my own map of progress seemed like an unbearable chore.

I suppose that’s what I get for growing up a console boy…

By: vader

vader — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:42:12 +0000

My parents, born in the beginning of the happy fifties, always encouraged me to fiddle around with computers and games but they never seemed to take much interest in it. Well unless you count the frenzy my dad went into after I accidently deleted the bookkeeping on his trusty old 386 that I used for playing Dune. I’ve tried to get them to try various games over the years without any success.. I think they ran out of interest after about 30 seconds and spent another 30 seconds in front of the screen just to be nice with me.

But in 2006 something amazing happened. I had moved out of town and my dad was on a business meeting in the same town so he stayed at my place. I had booted up GTR 2 and hooked up my Logitech G25 steering wheel and was in the middle of race when he knocked on the door. This time he was interested for real, asking “what’s that?” pointing at the screen. I explained a bit about the game and asked if he wanted to try. He’s quite into motor sports and said sure. I told him I would set a lap time and that he would have to beat it before I got out of the shower. We had made an reservation on a restaurant in town so we needed to be out of the apartment and on our way in no less then an hour. An hour later he was still glued to the screen and I was ready to use a crowbar the way Gordon Freeman does to get him to stop playing.

But in the end, the only important thing is that he never beat my lap time.

By: TooNu

TooNu — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:56:04 +0000

Hey ho late posting here but I had to say something after reading this. Great writing and something I can also relate to, pretty much the same story as everybody else above me here and its a fairly common theme that, interests/new fads/new tech stretches from generation to generation, and the previous generations never understand the newer generations.

Your dad accepting your hobby that is obviously not entirely consuming your life (I assume you leave the house to socialise….right?) and that seems to keep you well grounded and happy in doing something you are interested in. So why would your own father complain? clearly he is not a complete dickface so him not saying anything negative about it is actually saying alot. Had he been all in your face griefing you every time you brought the subject of gaming up, or even overly sarcastic, that opinion would be different.
Cheers for sharing this story :)
TooNu.

Below is just a snippit of my similar story.

My dad used to game LOADS and nowadays only finds time to sneak in a campaign of some WW2 textile turnbased strategy game in, or a bash at X. I remember he was well interested in PC gaming and Atari gaming all the way back to the C64 where he even made a game ‘Spell seeker’ (I think 5 people bought it, possibly more). This is more than likely the reason I game today. And game HEAVILY.

Going to his house on Saturdays with my brother watching him play Xcom and Panzer Generals, Red Baron, Dune 2 and Doom on the 486 and early Pentium never bored me and instead encouraged us to share ideas and talk about the plane models or tank models and old tactics that won battles in Africa or France. Dogfighting tricks in bi-planes that today, nobody gives a shit about BUT at the time it was great fun.

I remember he had to go away to some Mid-East RAF base or it was maybe to some oilrig to do the SAS computer programmes, he went away to these things for his job so often you lose track where he was at what time. Anyway, he had a shuttle PC that he had to use for some work and a copy of Doom was installed on it(must have been ’93 then) which he played over the week, he came back for the following Saturday and was pretty excited about showing us it. We gave it a shot as you do and THAT was the turning point. No game before that gave me the shits and excitement quite like that game. I remember going to school and trying to explain how it worked and nobody beleived me…twats. Not many games today come out and captivate people and change everything that you know about your hobby quite like Doom did. Bloody horror violence, bringing familes together, weird.

yesyes Wolfenstein came out first, at the time we didn’t have a copy of Wolfenstein.

By: scott

scott — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:00:52 +0000

Late response here too …

My parents are in their early 50′s now. My mom used to play a couple of games in the late 80′s, “Bouncing Babies” on our IBM PC mainly. My dad used to enjoy a couple more titles – Lode Runner and Q-Bert mostly. So he is what introduced me to gaming originally. But he seemed to loose interest after our 486 and games started becoming more complex. I could never even convince my parents to play NES with me aside from one frustrating try at Super mario bros. the day we got it.

I have had several semi-recent opportunities to show my dad games though with interesting results. In 2002, I managed to convince him to play Dance Dance Revolution with me in an arcade. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, to my surprise.
Also, a couple of years ago he was visiting my house and needed to log onto my computer to access a website for work. When he was done and we were still at the computer, I loaded up Half Life 2, which had just come out, and I wanted to show him how far graphics technology had progressed since the old days of Lode Runner… His first reaction upon seeing it, he said “What an incredible world…”, kind of with a awed look on his face. I thought that was pretty interesting :)

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:55:32 +0000

I know I’m very late on this one but my dad is a gamer. I ‘proper’ gamer, I remember him teaching me to play C C over the network in his office and playing quake with him and my friends. In fact I used to play Doom with him. I was very young, he would control it and all I did was press the fire button but it was awesome! Gave me some pretty bad nightmares though hehe!

By: Garth

Garth — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:06:28 +0000

“I think it’ll be interesting to think what we’ll, as adept gamer-types, be like as Dads (or Mums, for that matter).”
My girlfriend has four kids; one six, three (triplets) three year olds.

She has insisted that her eldest play the original Real Games first: Mario 1, Sonic The Hedgehog, etc.

You should see his eyes light up with I play WoW or Team Fortress 2. It’s like watch a child on chri… er… like a hardcore gamer staring at 2 gigs of free RAM.

By: Spieleforschung

Spieleforschung — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:18:48 +0000

Very interesting article – far too common experience ;)
The comments are also nice. What’s the difference between elderly playing digital games and the ones that don’t?
I guess it’s not just the use of computers and stuff.

By: Caiman

Caiman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:12:17 +0000

I agree, great article. While my parents weren’t responsible for my gaming addiction, they certainly supported it and were a part of it. Today they’re both in their mid 60′s and play games far more than I do – mostly WoW but also a variety of strategy and RPG games. They never did get into FPS games for similar reasons to the ones mentioned in the article – although they’re both very familiar with the first-person view, neither particulalry enjoy or are good at that “laser fingered” gameplay (as my dad puts it). In my general circle of friends and acquaintances though, my parents are essentially unique. And better for it.

By: Irish Al

Irish Al — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:05:57 +0000

I should also mention that I am in a Day Of Defeat:Source clan whose members average 35+ and whose oldest member is 60 odd.

By: Irish Al

Irish Al — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:03:30 +0000

Had to laugh at the part about broadband resistance – my ould fella is the same. He only got his frist DVD player last year, we never had a VCR at home growing up. So I’m trying to persuade him to get broadband and the only argument I could come up with to convince him was that we would visit more often if I wasn’t going to be jacked out of my web feed while there.

By: Empty=IRL=

Empty=IRL= — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:11:56 +0000

This is a really superb article that I think most gamers can relate to. Thanks for sharing Alec.

By: Scandalon

Scandalon — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:32:40 +0000

Hmm, guess you can’t edit posts…

Anyway, addendum:

RE: Same-generation disconnect: A couple (several?) years ago, whilst playing some version of Worms on the Dreamcast with a couple girls that had come over… A health pack, or rather, a white square with a red cross on it drifted down and one of them asked “What’s that?” and I just remember being startled at the game “language” that most of us take for granted…

Watching my Wife try and play portal (and learn WASD and mouselook at the same time) was rather maddening as well.