Counterpoint:
The reason they will be out of touch is that they will have better impulse control and better spending habits than kids raised on modern games with their FOMO MTX and gacha bullshit.
So basically, actual ‘nerds’ are rasing another generation of ‘nerds’, except this time, nerds 2.0 will probably actually be more socially intelligent than the brain dead zombies being raised on fornite, roblox and tiktok, who have negative attention spans and cannot fathom the concept of doing any actual thought-work, when chatgpt can just do their homework for them.
They’ll also be more tech savvy, like being exposed to or having to learn at least some of how emulation works, which kinda de facto makes you understand things like a file structure, which an increasing number of kids (now adults too) raised on modern mobile UIs… have no clue about.
Oh, they’ll also likely just be generally more literate.
You’re not kidding about file structure. I haven’t got a fucking clue how to do it with phones. Every thing is just “in here somewhere” and it’ll pray the search feature can find it when I eventually locate the file browser.
I miss my PC
Due to circumstances, I’ve had to emulate more on phones. You very much can figure out the file structure so long at its Android (and 9 times out of 10 shit is just in the download folder). I swear my wife’s iPhone is a little black box, though.
IIRC modern iOS ships with a file manager. The black box used to be even worse!
iPhone bitch here
Yeah we absolutely have a file manager!
And where might I find the files saved by an application?
“Files”
Yeah, if she plays an N64, she won’t be exposed to any popular series from today, and will instead play things like Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Smash Bros., and Pokémon.
Yeah but (with the exception of Pokémon) the graphics have moved on a bit
Stop this slander
The N64 Pokémon games aren’t that bad
Honestly this is how my parents(‘ generation) got me into gaming, pre-NES, because I was playing their games on Atari and Intellivision. I don’t know if it was the NES’s marketing or what that made people associate video games = for kids, but they were all in their 20s at the time and they had a blast with that stuff. Actually now that I think about it my grandma was mean at Burger Time back in the day.
Removed by mod
There are plenty of games up to the PS3 era that every kid would do well to play at least once. Stuff that is objectively good, that aged well, or close enough.
The problem, as I see it, is that if they get too used to mobile games, they won’t have the patience for typical console or PC games, because those, on average, aren’t dopamine dispensers and won’t be rewarding every second click or button press - more importantly, they should NOT nag the player with cash shops.
Also important: limit the amount of games available - this is valid both for current and retro games. The moment you have “all the games” at your disposal, several things kick in: analysis paralysis, appeal to familiarity (will only play what you already know or someone knows), seeing no value in the games[1].
Others mentioned the social aspect, which is true as well and something they just can’t experience nowadays anymore. Minecraft and Roblox are famous because they’re easy for kids to pick and play with friends. Back in our days, we had to physically sit beside one another and play together, or pass the controller on death; we also physically lent and traded games, so the games also had value within our little social circles. While fully digital games are extremely convenient, the “scarcity” gave them a social value that they completely lack today and which I suppose boardgames now fill out (yes, you can play them online, but playing on an actual table is almost always better)
If, when you were small, you only had a limited selection of games, which was common during the cartridge era, you would be very careful with choosing new games to ask your parents to buy, though renting was an option to see which ones were good or not. You had to make do with the little you had. When you got bored with one, you either looked through your collection and played something else, or did something else entirely; you never threw away a game (unless it really sucked) and you never got a new game on a whim. That is good. ↩︎
You’re not wrong about “freedom within limits” when it comes to gaming imho. Having access to everything means you/they will play nothing. Witness my Steam library :/
But introducing artifical scarcity means you can curate the experience with them. Something small, bespoke and meaningful that you can bond over.
As the saying goes, you can never step in the same river twice, but you can point out the best spot for others.
You are just giving your kids more options, most don’t have that choice and can only play whatever launches for phones or switch.
