30 year old gamers feeling disenfranchised?

[Weaver]

25, I feel the same way. Started gaming when I was 4 years old; we had an intellivision and an NES. We got a computer when I was around 8 (i think?) and I started my PC gaming habits around then (though I did have consoles too).

I also feel the 90s were pretty much a golden age. The SNES and Genesis had an awesome market feud that caused a lot of great games to come down on both sides. And the PC had some amazing experimentation happening on it. It felt like every year there were a ton of games pushing the envelope in every direction. Yes we have the indie scene now, but back in the 90s it was like every developer was an indie developer.

 

[loa]

We've broken the wall between educational and entertaining games and have games that teach you actual real life skills now while still remaining fun.
We have games that are healthy to play.
We have games that have realistic mimic, where reading people is an intended gameplay mechanic.
We're at a point at which graphics are developed enough to slowly start to becoming secondary to style.
We have games that have been developed by one single person from start to finish because that's how simple it has become to make some games.

Yeah I liked my dungeon keepers, sacrifices and sonics just like the next guy but how can you not see that we're living in exciting times?

 

[Grygor]

you cant define somones tastes as "30 years old...plays games" what if they really like current games?

I don't see how anyone who grew up on 8 bit consoles, moved into PC gaming and lived through the golden age of innovation and depth could even remotely be impressed by the current modern video game.

There's people my age in this thread who have never strayed from a console; which was dead to me at the age of 12 circa 1994 and I'll tell you why.

Doom.

What kind of gamer did not save his money and buy a PC to get in on the most influential game of all time? To say nothing of the other RTS/TBS and myriad of other shooters coming out at that time- each one fresh and new... What kind of gamer stood by as the 90's glory days were in full swing and said, i'll stick by my SNES/Sega???

It honestly does not surprise me that someone who made that choice would consider themselves content with today's games.

In 1994, I was 15, and I already had a PC.

And I found that Doom got really old, really fast, and the crappy animation on the enemy sprites was incredibly distracting. I had much more fun with Descent and Descent 2. I found most of the "Doom-clones" as they were called then incredibly juvenile - basically a child's view of maturity, surrounded in a shell of "dick-and-fart jokes". And PC-style strategy games had absolutely no draw for me.

My opinion then was, why bother with boring crap like Duke Nukem and Warcraft when I could be playing sexy fun games like Super Metroid and Ogre Battle?

 

[Antari]

I don't know about you, but I am. There's only a few relatively obscure games I'm really looking forward to, PlanetSide 2 being the biggie. Right now, I have been playing nothing but CoD Black Ops - Zombies for 5 months, around the time I just stopped playing SkyRim without even both to finish. No exaggeration. There are a total of 7 games on my steam account.

So here's is who I want to here from. If you're 30, and you started out with the children's toys, the consoles, and as you grew up- you moved onto PC and witnessed the glory days of the mid 90's; I want to hear from you.

If you're 30, and you did nothing but put product in your hair and chase tail from 14-25 and only recently bought an xbox360 because you remembered nintendo being fun as a kid- you're not like me- but i'll hear from you anyway.

Tell how much attention is being paid to you and what you want? How happy are you with the current crop of games? What do you miss? etc. I know there's a handful of you who post regularly.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. But I have realized that the companies don't want my business. Because I actually make my money and care about how its spent, game companies don't want anything to do with me. They just want to keep churning out mediocre crap to kids tearing the money out of mommy's hands. Who is just giving them the money to shut them up.

I don't see any solution to the problem in a large scale. People turn stupid the more of them you get together in a group. So expecting any sort of organized resistence against the game companies is pretty crazy. But I am hopeful EA keeps testing the waters of acceptability. One day they'll piss everyone off, I hope.

To answer your questions ; 1. They pay absolutely no attention to the games I play, except for Paradox Interactive. They atleast appear to be trying to do things more like the old days.
2. The current crop of games (From the 90's) .. Absolutely. But keep in mind I haven't bought a new game in roughly 4 years. I just let people around me make the mistake of buying and being disapointed, then I try the game out and most of the time agree with them.
3. What do I miss? Competition, technical innovation, creativity, a fully tested and functioning product. Getting what I paid for.

How well is the games industry doing in my eyes? I've seen children do better ... they have no excuses. Laziness and greed have completely taken over the games industry. It has NOTHING to do with fun for the consumer anymore.