It's a bit of an odd situation. My dad is a bit of a sci-fi geek, and he thinks, for example, Half-Life 2 has an intriguing plotline as I describe it to him. However, he will never, ever actually play a game, as he believes my generation is too dependent on electronic entertainment and he simply doesn't want to get involved. Yes, he reads speculative fiction and somehow is also a Luddite.
My mother is, simply put, a casual gamer. She plays everything Popcap's put out--fortunately she hasn't sunk to the level of Farmville--and is currently playing Plants vs. Zombies rather obsessively. She has tried, on occasion, to play something with a little more substance, but she panicked when introduced to the 3D worlds of Portal and Minecraft. She started rotating the mouse to the left when she wanted to look to the left, and the concept of moving forward and jumping at the same time was utterly beyond her. At one point, she created a portal loop and was very proud of herself until I told her she was passing through the same room over and over again, at which point she got a queasy look on her face and walked away from the computer. She also refuses to believe that games can be more than just mindless entertainment. If I try to explain a storyline or clever element of gameplay to her, she immediately starts rolling her eyes.
So they're a bit odd when it comes to games. They don't outright hate them, but don't really understand them either.
