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Getting Old And Playing Video Games Still - Right or Wrong?
Posted by
Joyrex
,
in
Video Games
26 May 2010
·
1438 views
Video games aging games as art
As some of you may know, I'll be 37 this year, and still play video games, am interested in video games, read about video games, and generally enjoy discussing video games. One of the frustrating things about playing games and getting older is your reflexes are not what they once were, and as a result, it takes a bit of getting used to when someone half your age hands your ass to you in a competitive video game like Street Fighter.
Sure, I guess I could compensate by playing MORE and devoting more time to it, but I have a family, job, wife, etc. that all take up my time, so it's not like I can sit and play for hours and hours without neglecting them (or staying up until the crack of dawn, which, when you're 37, gets harder and harder to recover from the next day).
I enjoy the mutual interest my son and I have in games (I'm probably more into them than he is), and it's something we can share and enjoy together - but at what point am I "too old" to be playing games?
Am I "too old" now? Should I be pursuing more "adult" interests, more "mature" interests?
For me, video games are not just entertainment, but in a lot of ways, an art form - being a graphic designer, I've always looked at the visual aspects of games and could appreciate the beauty of simplistic 8-bit tile graphics made of pixels and a limited colour palette as much as I can be awed by today's near-photo-realistic rendered textures and shaded 3D objects made of millions of polygons. I also enjoy the ideas, stories and concepts that video games convey. I get the same enjoyment out of them as one would a blockbuster movie, or reading a good book.
I know a lot of you are younger, so forgive the ramblings of an old man
, but what do you think about all this? Should I "grow up" and stop playing games, or am I just making this up in my head, thinking I'm too old?
Sure, I guess I could compensate by playing MORE and devoting more time to it, but I have a family, job, wife, etc. that all take up my time, so it's not like I can sit and play for hours and hours without neglecting them (or staying up until the crack of dawn, which, when you're 37, gets harder and harder to recover from the next day).
I enjoy the mutual interest my son and I have in games (I'm probably more into them than he is), and it's something we can share and enjoy together - but at what point am I "too old" to be playing games?
Am I "too old" now? Should I be pursuing more "adult" interests, more "mature" interests?
For me, video games are not just entertainment, but in a lot of ways, an art form - being a graphic designer, I've always looked at the visual aspects of games and could appreciate the beauty of simplistic 8-bit tile graphics made of pixels and a limited colour palette as much as I can be awed by today's near-photo-realistic rendered textures and shaded 3D objects made of millions of polygons. I also enjoy the ideas, stories and concepts that video games convey. I get the same enjoyment out of them as one would a blockbuster movie, or reading a good book.
I know a lot of you are younger, so forgive the ramblings of an old man
, but what do you think about all this? Should I "grow up" and stop playing games, or am I just making this up in my head, thinking I'm too old?
