Long in the tooth
Reading the most recent post on Play This Thing, where the writer (not G. C.) refers to the relatively recent Knytt as being the first freeware game they ever downloaded, reminds me of a small discussion I attended at last month's GameLoop. It was about game visuals, and most of the handful of attendees were actively employed as artists for modern video games.
Two things happened there that neatly confirmed the fact that I have moved into a new age demographic among game-players. The first was when the discussion's leader said "I'm going to date myself here, but..." followed by an allusion to Sonic the Hedgehog. This is a game that was published as I was starting college, so I don't automatically consider it a very old game, even though our prickly blue friend is old enough to vote now.
The second occurred when I casually mentioned the art style of arcade game cabinets as part of a larger point, while I was participating in the discussion. Nobody in the room knew was I was talking about - they may have been lifelong gamers, but it was well before their time! They all gazed at me like tell us about the war, grandpa, so I felt obliged to pull together a tiny art-history lesson about it. If you're at all familiar with my recent video projects you can correctly imagine that I took some enjoyment out of this.
Honestly, I'm kind of grinny about this realization, especially since I'm setting myself up to dive deeper into independent game journalism (c.f., c.f.). Having an air of experience isn't at all a bad thing!
Two things happened there that neatly confirmed the fact that I have moved into a new age demographic among game-players. The first was when the discussion's leader said "I'm going to date myself here, but..." followed by an allusion to Sonic the Hedgehog. This is a game that was published as I was starting college, so I don't automatically consider it a very old game, even though our prickly blue friend is old enough to vote now.
The second occurred when I casually mentioned the art style of arcade game cabinets as part of a larger point, while I was participating in the discussion. Nobody in the room knew was I was talking about - they may have been lifelong gamers, but it was well before their time! They all gazed at me like tell us about the war, grandpa, so I felt obliged to pull together a tiny art-history lesson about it. If you're at all familiar with my recent video projects you can correctly imagine that I took some enjoyment out of this.
Honestly, I'm kind of grinny about this realization, especially since I'm setting myself up to dive deeper into independent game journalism (c.f., c.f.). Having an air of experience isn't at all a bad thing!