So, hear me out.
I’m a 47 year old guy and I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoy video games. I always have, from playing Head over Heels on a Speccy +2 to ESO and Valorant on my self built PC.
Due to various life circumstances, I’m also on the dating scene and to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema. When I say that I like them it’s usually meet with an “oh dear” or a “my son would probably love to talk to you about them, I find them really boring”
I have two boys, both teenagers, both play all the time and sometimes we all play together (although they are better as they have more time to apply to games). Their friends are amazed that I will talk about games with them, that I know someone about games and that I play games. None of their parents want to talk with them about what is effectively their main hobby that they do all the time (big sad).
So the question, there must be some sort of cut off age at which video games are no longer an acceptable pastime. Is it absolute age based (nothing after 35) or is it something to do with the progression of games into popular culture and people born after, say, 1986 will not see it as unacceptable?
I don’t have an answer, I just think it’s an interesting question. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
Edit to add: I’m not planning on stopping through peer pressure, just wondering about the phenomenon!
Yeah it doesn’t seem like an age cutoff so much as a generational cutoff. People born in the 1950s obviously didn’t grow up with arcades and consoles, so few of them would pick up the hobby later in life. Someone born in the mid 1970s like OP would be coming of age right as consoles and PC gaming were hitting the scene so more of that generation would have gamed as kids but still not an overwhelming amount like kids today.
As far as OPs date’s go, they’re probably just envisioning the stereotypical guy who is addicted to gaming and ignores other responsibilities even though that doesn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps he should frame it in a different way like pointing out how he bonds with his kids over them if it’s an issue or just ignore it all together. My wife and I are late 30s and she doesn’t play games outside of a small amount Animal Crossing but she doesn’t care that I enjoy them and I have no plans on quitting as I get older.
This is exactly what I say, that I bond with my son over video games. He is 6.5 now and I am 42…I never want to stop playing games, but I do say that after having a kid I have a lot less time to actually sit down and play.