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https://freedium.cfd/https://medium.com/crows-feet/gaming-while-old-18e32e236bcc>
'"What did you do this weekend?"
"Oh, not much. I did some work around the house, watched some TV." I say. This
is my go-to answer. No one usually asks for more details, and, if they ask
about TV, I have plenty of answers, even if I watched no TV at all that
weekend.
What I don't talk about is the hours I played
Minecraft or what I did in
The
Sims or how I decided to tinker in
Civilization. I don't say anything
because I'm 55 and 55-year-olds don't play video games. And yet, playing a game
online is just as legitimate a pastime as watching a sports game on TV,
something millions of people do every weekend (not to mention during the week).
Gaming is challenging, engaging, and social. But it suffers from old
stereotypes. When you picture a gamer, I bet you picture first, a boy, and
second, a teenager.
I've been playing video games since I was about twelve, from
Pong at home to
games like
Pac-Man and
Space Invaders at the arcade. Gaming has always
offered me a unique opportunity for both self-improvement and social
interactions. Playing both arcade games and console games with friends and
family, I kept trying to get better, to beat my competition, or when playing on
my own, to beat my last high score or get to the next level.
During my teens and young adult years, when I felt a lot of anxiety about
whether I was good enough, gaming offered me a clear-cut picture of how good I
was. There were scores and levels. But because it was low stakes, I could
strive to be better, risk trying new things, and not worry about failing.
Because it didn't really matter.
When I went off to graduate school, computer gaming exploded. My husband
introduced me to
Rogue, the original, and we also started playing the Sierra
games:
King's Quest,
Leisure Suit Larry, and
Space Quest. We often played
these games together, working out the puzzles and following the storylines
sitting side by side. I enjoyed the challenge of the games themselves, but more
importantly, working with my husband to solve those challenges. Some games,
like
Myst, were true mind-benders, forcing you to think in different ways.
Eventually, the Internet expanded who you could play with. My husband and I
began playing
Doom with each other over a local network, often turning out
the lights to make it even scarier. And we discovered some other online games
we could play together like
You Don't Know Jack. We still talk about those
years, when I was pregnant with my son and we sat in our shared home office
playing games together.'
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
