wdolson
Posts: 10398
Joined: 6/28/2006
From: Near Portland, OR
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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Forgive me as I may make multiple posts here, sifting through the thread in the airport as I catch up on what I missed this week...
First, my strongest reaction is to the perception of Millennials as having short attention spans for games, more action games, etc. I'm smack in the middle of said generation (b. 1986). I grew up when computers "came of age", as it were. It's been very interesting. I observe strong differences between myself and others just a few years older or just a few years younger - there is such a difference in my cohort within just a few years. The rate of change of technology definitely has a lot to do with this. People just a few years my senior do tend to be a bit more disconnected, more old school, than those a few years my junior - but this is by no means true of all of them. Some of those older than I are more connected/pugged in than I am, and some of those younger than I display technology habits more reminiscent of Boomers. It's somewhat comical to me that just last night I was sitting in a bar and the Boomer couple next to me was taking selfies and Snapchatting/Instragramming, while I was reading my tablet and am in a domestic relationship with a veritable Luddite who sends maybe 5 texts per year. In any case, I digress... I meant to make the point that the perception of Millennials as being all into fast paced action games or simple mobile games is probably missing the mark, in that if you look more broadly at gaming you'll notice that it's a universal trend. As gaming becomes more popular, more people play. Those Millennials (and others) who flock to games such as Call of Duty, Wii-style group games, MMOs, and mobile games may not have gamed at all if the technology for these games didn't exist. I think we're just witnessing the universalization of gaming. The degree to which gaming has become accepted, and in some cases encouraged, within our culture compared to just 10 years ago is astounding to me whenever I step back to think about it.
Nothing with humans is ever 100%. There are Millennials who like this game such as yourself, but I have noticed that younger gamers more often want a lot of action and older gamers tend to be more comfortable with the slower pace of a strategy game.
I noticed a sharp difference between those born before 1966. I was born in 1966 and through high school, my grade always had far more discipline problems and more learning problems than the year before. I went to three different schools, one was ranked as tied for the best K-8 school in Los Angeles County, and another was an elite high school with a lot of kids turned away every year. The year ahead in all three schools was well behaved, and kept on pace. My classes always lagged behind what was expected and had a lot of discipline problems. One of my teachers in high school told us we were the worst junior class (year 3) the school had ever had, but from what he heard about the current sophomore class (year 2), we were going to make them look like geniuses.
Depending on who you refer to the demarcation line between the generations is different. Many sources I've seen start GenX around the mid-60s at some point and end it around 1980. From what I saw between those born in 1965 and 1966, I think the line was right there.
That said, I always related better to Boomers than GenX. Even today I have more Boomer friends than GenX or later. My SO is a Boomer and we do relate quite well culturally, though our tastes in music are very different. She hates 80s music and that was the music of my youth. She likes punk (she was even in a punk band once) and grunge and I like neither.
In my case, my family and how I grew up probably had something to do with it. My parents were in their 40s when I came along, so they were the generation that raised the Boomers and there were few kids in my neighborhood. When I was a little kid, all the other kids were teenagers and by the time I was 6-7 almost all the neighbors were empty nesters. So there was no pack of kids my age to hang out with. Most of the people I related to were around my parents' age. That probably made me think more like a Boomer than a GenX.
I've also noticed a big demarcation around 1955. Those born before then more often have trouble grokking computers than those born 1955 or later. Those born in the mid-50s were the first generation to experience calculators in college. The concept of electronic aids came into their consciousness before they finished growing up so when computers came along, they took to them quite easily. Now I have known quite gifted programmers born in the 30s, and some younger people who can't figure out how to turn on a computer, but it seems more common that those born 1955 and later tend to have fewer problems with the basics of computers.
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In any case, my origin story, which I've probably related several times in various forms:
Got an NES for Christmas in 1990. It came with Super Mario 3/Duck Hunt combo. It was awesome. Even before that, I'd played arcade-style games forever. My father purchased about a dozen over the years from auctions at the state fairgrounds. My parents still have 7 of them. My mother wants to get rid of them, and I'd love to have them/restore them if I had the resources, but I don't. They have several classics. A table-style Dig-Dug, Zaxxon, Rastan (OK less of a classic but a great game), Centipede, and Baby Pac-Man. Great stuff.
I didn't watch a lot of TV growing up, played outside in the woods building forts and stuff instead (does that sound like your typical Millennial, eh?), but I'd see commercials for games like BattleQuest I think it was called. I ended up getting a game for Christmas one year in maybe 6th or 7th grade. I forget the name, but it was very similar in backstory to Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It was played on a vinyl map with large hexes. There were the forces of the Empire and Chaos + beasties. There were several scenarios, and a big plastic tower and plastic hedges to flesh out the map with extra terrain. It was great. I think it was called Battle Masters. I still have that stuff, though it was long ago co-opted for use as Warhammer/40K pieces.
Around the same time, I met a friend who introduced my to Pacific Theater of Operations: 2 on SNES. I must've played that for hundreds or thousands of hours via video rental stores. I'd rent for a weekend and never leave the house. When I could afford to rent it again, usually no one else had rented it in between so my saved games remained. I eventually purchased it in high school or college. Occasionally I will pull up the soundtrack on YouTube while I'm doing a turn at work...
Other than that, I was always drawn to the WW2 section of the local library. I must've checked out that Campaign for Guadalcanal book a dozen times a year, just for the drawings of ships. I built models, and preferred WW2 planes and eventually moved on to ships. Also dabbled in rocketry. I liked the books with picture sections, so I could flip to the pictures in between chapters and browse. My mother had a copy of the Midway novel, and I eventually watched the film - Henry Fonda, I believe. Decent flick. IIRC it used actual footage from the battle, yes?
Never went military, although I almost did. In some ways, I wish I had - the benefits to veterans are great. Anything to get a leg up these days... My first year at college, I was having some troubles. I went to the Navy recruiter's office after winter break. After some tests and whatnot, they wanted to make me a "Nuke". I hesitated. I wasn't sure I was really "into" the modern Navy, and that I'd probably get disillusioned. Obviously, I ended up not doing it, but the reason why was a girl. Figures, right? That decision shaped my life in a lot of ways. Don't know where I'd be if I'd gone through with it. Possibly not on these forums.
And these days, I live in Maryland just outside of DC. I think that's included in the "Eastern USA" off-map hex in the game  . I'm from Des Moines, IA, originally.
It sounds like you had a childhood a bit like previous generations like I did.
Bill
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