Diary of an Aging Gamer

eToyChest has an insightful column up looking at the realities of the modern game store shelf, and how the titles there relate to the youth of today. From the article: "This year's summer trip to the software store made one thing very clear to me: In its efforts to follow initial adopters into adulthood, the videogame industry has--inadvertently or otherwise--left children in the dust. There is no denying the fact that today's kids aren't going to have the same experience we had when we were young. Back then, the bread and butter of the big game companies (i.e., Atari, Sega, Nintendo and others) was the child market. Games were appealing to grown-ups, too--if only for the tech factor--but appealing to the kids was where the most money could be had. Walking into the game store meant finding a wall full of games dedicated to the young player."

Comments

Not really

[jclast]

I don't think they've left the children behind. They just haven't given up on their first customers, and now they've got that much more market. Let's use RPGs as an example.

Pokemon: cute, easy to learn, good value. This one's for kids. You've just introduced a 10 year old to hit points and turn based battles.

Final Fantasy: middle of the road. This one's accessible to everybody, but adults will probably do better than your average 13 year old. The stories are starting to pick up here.

Disgaea: almost definitely for a more mature (read patient) crowd. The story is there, but the focus is now on the battles themselves. The thinking person will definitely triumph over the button-masher here.

By the time little Johnny grows up, he'll have made it through all three types of RPG, and along the way he'll have given the video game industry its fair share of his money.

Games appeal to everybody. _That's_ what game developers have realized. They can sell to 20 year olds just as well (if not better) as they can to 10 year olds.

Re:Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone can spend dozens of hours powerlevelling to L2000 or so, it takes more skill to finish the game without it.

That said, Disgaea is the first RPG that I've played where the timer runs past 99:59 and I found that out through personal experience.

It's also the first RPG I've played where you can deal over 1 million points of damage (shown on screen as 1000K) in a single attack. Pulverizing enemies like that was totally worth the hundred-someodd hours I put into levelling and transforming characters. Even later Final Fantasy games' damage limit break skills (up to a relatively sad 99,999 damage) don't compare.

Re:No Adult Left Behind

[tepples]

Adults seem to have far more money to spend than children.

You seem to underestimate the sheer amount of money that children control through their parents. E games keep Nintendo profitable.