Father Teaches Son Gaming History the Hard Way: Playing It

[f1r2a3n4k5]

I read this and had the thought of the child rebellion against dad forcing their hobbies on them, but now it's in reverse:

"Stop fooling around in that damn garage and pick up the controller."

"Why should I?"

"I'm not telling you again, press Start right now or you're grounded!"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME AT ALL!"

I know, right! "I will not have a son who plays baseball. Now get in the house and practice your Soul Caliber."

Just let kids develop their own hobbies on their own course. If video games are inherently interesting (which I believe to be true), he'll pick them up on his own just by being surrounded by them.

I do like to reflect on the generational changes though. Just imagine, when this generation reaches retirement, we'll be heading to the arcades instead of the golf course.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Good man ! I always told my GF when we have kids they are going to start from the bottom like me, with a Nes/Mastersystem and 56K internet. So they learn to RESPECT the interwebs and have hands on history of older games to wise them up to the cheap endless churning out of the same bullshit.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

Yes, because god forbid we let children naturally develop their own preferences. If we did that, they might even... *GASP* like modern games! It's much better to indoctrinate them with our own preferences by having them go through everything we did at their age, like some sort of religious society, we must teach our children to follow the one True Way of Gaming.

I don't get why you can't just let your kid play what he wants. If you want to introduce them to the classics, by all means go ahead and do it, but don't force them to play it out of some stupid notion that he should value the same things in games that you do.

 

[Jiggle Counter]

Too bad his son had to miss out on DOS games. He missed out on a lot of gaming history.

Hell yeah, DOS games were awesome. I remember the day I went from PC SPEAKER to CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER, blew me away.

 

[Strazdas]

Its scary to see this many people prasing bad parenting.

ok, now that you got over being angry ill explain. its bad parenting, because its forcing your children into certain hobies instead of letting them develop their own preferences. its especially bad because those hobies are outdated and thus its not relatable to others of his own age, which would leave him a social reject by his friends if this cintinues.

This is just a simple case of "i like this therefore my children must too" awful parent example.

 

[LaoJim]

Its scary to see this many people prasing bad parenting.

Yeah, this kind of makes me very uncomfortable. It all depends on the kids attitude, especially as he gets older. At four he's not going to know any different, but there's going to come a day when he realized that what he's playing isn't the same as everyone else in the playground is playing. If he's nagging his dad to play Minecraft and the dad is making him play Adventure that's not cool and there seems to be this strange assumption that the old games are universally better than the newer ones. While Mario 64 is a great game, is it really going to be that much better for his development than playing Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U? One positive I guess is you had a lot better children's games back in the day,

 

[FirstNameLastName]

While do agree with the overall premise of getting him to appreciate how an art form has developed over the years, it's hard not to get the preachy and elitist vibe from this. Especially since hating modern gaming is so trendy, and having an almost fetishistic worship of old gaming seems to be treated as some kind of badge of honor.
The funny part about this is the way that so many gamers complain that gaming doesn't get enough credit as an art form due to all the snobs who hate if for being a late comer to the art world, yet there's often a large amount of over lap with them and the people who hate modern gaming for being different to old gaming.

Yes, because god forbid we let children naturally develop their own preferences. If we did that, they might even... *GASP* like modern games! It's much better to indoctrinate them with our own preferences by having them go through everything we did at their age, like some sort of religious society, we must teach our children to follow the one True Way of Gaming.

I don't get why you can't just let your kid play what he wants. If you want to introduce them to the classics, by all means go ahead and do it, but don't force them to play it out of some stupid notion that he should value the same things in games that you do.

I actually laughed at that notion, because it's almost true. There are even some people in this thread who seem to be unironically talking about teaching them about real gaming, as opposed to all those fake games they make now. Even if they don't use those exact words.

 

[GinraiPrime]

I was exposed to many things when I was younger that most of the other kids my age couldn't relate to but its something you can relate to with your parents. Plus, its still fundamentally gaming, despite it being "dated" and not current. If any of his friends come over and see an older system that they don't recognise I think alot of them would be curious and give it a try. My neices and nephews have been like this with me in the past and so have their friends. They can still recognise it as a game and if they want to give it a try, that's up to them.
Yes, on one hand you could say its bad parenting but then that doesn't stop the vast amounts of other parents in the world influencing sports, family practices, family buisness, beliefs or politics onto their children. If that is deemed fine and normal by most people then why shouldn't this?

 

[beastro]

I've always thought about doing this if I have kids. On top of it it would help keep the kids away from getting hooked on the train of wanting the next best thing in the unending line of next best things.

Yes, on one hand you could say its bad parenting but then that doesn't stop the vast amounts of other parents in the world influencing sports, family practices, family buisness, beliefs or politics onto their children. If that is deemed fine and normal by most people then why shouldn't this?

I'm finding it more and more amusing to see all the whining about parents influencing their children, as if they should grow up twisting in the wind without any grounding. I'd think the lesson of generations past is the damaged caused to people raised without a strong parental sense leaving them feeling lost adrift in life, alienated from society and all together apathetic and listless.

There's a huge difference between raising a kid to carry on the traditions and values of your ancestors and shoe horning them into living the next stage of your life for you like many seem to be trying to do pushing their kids into things they could never do as kids themselves like sports, et al.

The difference is why you're raising the kid the way you are and in this case, I'd be doing it wanting my kid to value things like patience, not being consumed in fads and at a more fundamental level, learning to appreciate not only older games for what they focused on like being uncompromising but also appreciating new games and how far we've come after putting up with limited mechanics and so many shitty ones over the years.

 

[softclocks]

I don't see how this would help her appreciate modern graphics and whatnot?

I grew up with the old consoles, but I still don't give a phuck about graphics today. If anything my history has made me less receptible to modern games :|

 

[beastro]

I don't see how this would help her appreciate modern graphics and whatnot?

I grew up with the old consoles, but I still don't give a phuck about graphics today. If anything my history has made me less receptible to modern games :|

From a game-centric perspective I'd hope it teaches a kid to appreciate games and look beyond graphics, but I find it an odd focus that people who grew up with games in the 70s, 80s and 90s hold that the newer kids don't care for. My cousins boy certainly doesn't fawn over them and loves the hell out of Minecraft for what he can do in it, not what it looks like.

 

[Kajin]

Gonna be honest here. Finding it really weird that I came in and saw people complaining about this being bad parenting. Like having your kid play old video games is the worst thing you could do or something. Is it not the duty of parent to teach child about life? If the father wants to teach gaming, why not introduce it by bringing the child up through the ages?

Older games are simpler in design and are easier to grasp as a result. I'm pretty sure a four year old would take to Pac-Man better than he would Call of Duty or Pokemon.

 

[Darknacht]

Its scary to see this many people prasing bad parenting.

Yeah, this kind of makes me very uncomfortable. It all depends on the kids attitude, especially as he gets older. At four he's not going to know any different, but there's going to come a day when he realized that what he's playing isn't the same as everyone else in the playground is playing. If he's nagging his dad to play Minecraft and the dad is making him play Adventure that's not cool and there seems to be this strange assumption that the old games are universally better than the newer ones.

"Like seemingly every kid his age, he loves Minecraft. No surprises there. But he also loves brutally difficult games that challenge gamers 2-3 times his age, and he's frighteningly good at them. His favorites usually borrow characteristics from roguelikes: procedurally-generated levels, permanent death, no save points."

I'm not seeing the same problem you seem to be. The kid started out playing old games and now plays Minecraft and modern roguelikes he is not being forced to keep playing old Atari games.
This is little more than having a kid read classic literature to help them have an appreciation for reading beyond Harry Potter and Twilight.

Spoiler: Ignore this.

Spoiler: I had to post this but you don't have to read it.

Spoiler: no really just ignore this

Spoiler: alright fine it you really want to

Mario 64 is a great game

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[LaoJim]

I'm not seeing the same problem you seem to be. The kid started out playing old games and now plays Minecraft and modern roguelikes he is not being forced to keep playing old Atari games.
This is little more than having a kid read classic literature to help them have an appreciation for reading beyond Harry Potter and Twilight.

Reading though it again, it doesn't explicitly say he wasn't allowed to play modern games while undergoing this course of study, but that's the impression I got. Instilling a love of literature is fine, but this seems like a parent saying "No you can't read Harry Potter, you have to read C.S Lewis so you'll develop a love of proper literature". There's something somewhat obsessively nerdy about not only sticking on an old video game every now and then and sitting down to play with the kid, but planning out a grand project that lasted 6 years covering the whole of video game history. If it happened organically, with the dad having an old Atari lying around the house and the kid enjoying playing it and then the dad thinking "Hey, why not get a NES" next, that's one thing. It's the whole grand scheme that seems a bit off to me, but that might just be a result of the way these things tend to get presented in this kind of article.

(For the record I don't like either Harry Potter or Narnia, feel free to exchange my examples with your own).

 

[Kahani]

While you could perhaps argue that Baio should have let Eliot naturally develop his own tastes

There's no such thing. A six year old child does not have an independent income, and even if he did it's physically impossible not to be affected by the culture you grow up in. The way Eliot's tastes will have developed is no more or less natural than every other child in the entire world - he plays with things he is provided with by others, he sees what they allow him to see, and he learns what they teach him. The only difference here is that this child is being taught a bit more of the history and development of one particular medium than most children get. It's no different from having a child read Shakespeare and Dickens before they move on to Har...

This is little more than having a kid read classic literature to help them have an appreciation for reading beyond Harry Potter and Twilight.

...yeah, that.

 

[False Messiah]

There's no such thing. A six year old child does not have an independent income, and even if he did it's physically impossible not to be affected by the culture you grow up in. The way Eliot's tastes will have developed is no more or less natural than every other child in the entire world - he plays with things he is provided with by others, he sees what they allow him to see, and he learns what they teach him.

Exactly what I wanted to say. The article also says that the kid is having fun, so there is no "Play this, even if you don't like it". I think that this is a better way to handle it then to give a 6 year old a copy of MW and GTA5.

 

[vid87]

I read this and had the thought of the child rebellion against dad forcing their hobbies on them, but now it's in reverse:

"Stop fooling around in that damn garage and pick up the controller."

"Why should I?"

"I'm not telling you again, press Start right now or you're grounded!"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME AT ALL!"

I do like to reflect on the generational changes though. Just imagine, when this generation reaches retirement, we'll be heading to the arcades instead of the golf course.

The beauty of it is they could be playing Golden Tee.

 

[AgedGrunt]

It's strange to think of "choosing" how your child is introduced to gaming. In the past, it was choice to either get the latest and greatest or have something second-hand. Eh, see if they like it. My dad hooked up his consoles from the 1970s; we didn't have money for an NES- that was family donated, rest is history.

This dad is great. I'd probably do something similar, but with all the iPads, phones and barrage of modern games out there, how are you going to get your kid to play Pong when they watch you trying to steer a spinning limousine through a city or fling a piece of bread across a realistic room?

I wouldn't even start with the NES; most of those games are torture chambers. SNES: StarFox, Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Mario Kart... the kid would be spoiled. I would say Steam games but I'd want to be able to show them how to do everything. And possibly beat them before they get their own games and utterly destroy me.

 

[Strazdas]

Gonna be honest here. Finding it really weird that I came in and saw people complaining about this being bad parenting. Like having your kid play old video games is the worst thing you could do or something. Is it not the duty of parent to teach child about life? If the father wants to teach gaming, why not introduce it by bringing the child up through the ages?

Older games are simpler in design and are easier to grasp as a result. I'm pretty sure a four year old would take to Pac-Man better than he would Call of Duty or Pokemon.

There is a difference between showing your child older games and forcing him to play only these before he is allowed to play others.

As far as four year olds grasping gaming, i can speak for 4 year olds, but my sister who was at the time 5 years old (now 7) played her first ever videogame when she was visiting me and she saw me playing it so she wanted to give it a try. The game was Oblivion. She just loved walking around and looking at things. perhaps not fully grasping the concept of the game, sure, but you dont need to start with pac man to get gaming. she even figured out how to shoot down the bandits by her second try (i was playing a sneaky archer character). She now has an android tablet as "her computer" and she is bored with games there meanwhile she loves playing them when she visits me because i usually have things like oblivion, mafia, mass effect on. she especially loves driving cars in mafia.

This is little more than having a kid read classic literature to help them have an appreciation for reading beyond Harry Potter and Twilight.

schools force kids to read "classic" literature. see how well that turned out to be.

Its fine to tell thier kids classic literature exits. its fine to show them. its not fine to force them to read it though.

 

[Kajin]

There is a difference between showing your child older games and forcing him to play only these before he is allowed to play others

I'm still not seeing what the big deal is. It's the parent's job to determine what is and is not suitable for their child. Are you saying that a four year old HAS to be brought up on current games instead of old ones? That, because the father wanted his child to play some of the same games he did when he was younger, that he's somehow the worst father in the world? The kid enjoyed playing the games regardless so what does it matter that they're older games over newer ones?

The guy isn't forcing his kid to sit in a corner and play nothing but Pac-Man or Dig Dug while laughing maniacally and playing PS4. He gave the kid a wide selection of games and the kid had fun. That's not bad parenting. That's awesome parenting.