Comment by testdelacc1
2 days ago
The point isn’t to play the best “non-faddish” games. It’s to play what’s in the zeitgeist and form bonds with people their own age.
I’m so glad my parents didn’t override my decisions on literature or video games or TV shows. I watched anime then, my parents didn’t get it, and that’s perfectly fine. I continue to enjoy it now. If they had made me adopt their mindset of “anime = fad” or “anime = cartoon = childish” I’d have been worse off. Instead of enjoying masterpieces like Frieren I’d be snobbishly thinking about what a fad it is.
We avoid fads because they come and go too quickly. My kids connect with their friends on games that are more enduring, like the From Software titles.
Enduring based on what metrics? Fornite is now an 8-year old massively (and still is) successful game. And the Battlefield series is actually 7 years older than the Souls series if you count from Demon's Souls. Comparing these 3 games is even more absurd because they are from entirely different genres, and they are not mutually exclusive, one can enjoy more than one genre.
I agree with other commenters in here, I feel sorry for your kids and thankful that my parents didn't treat me like what you are doing with your kids now.
When I think about enduring titles, I think about whether the kind of game that you'd pick up 20 years later and still consider to be a good game. I raised them on a curriculum of games starting with 80s titles and as they got older I progressed them all the way up into the 2020s so they would have a perspective on where particular gameplay mechanics came from. I see your point about the longevity of the Battlefield series and Fortnite, but my impression is people don't go back and play earlier Battlefield titles: I have always viewed them a little bit like the FIFA titles where there is a constant treadmill of needing to buy the latest version of the game. This is not true for Dark Souls, for example -- it's a sort of game you could play in decades and it would be as much of a masterpiece then it is today. I didn't really mean to compare the titles, but rather to use them as examples of titles that I would approve or disapprove of.
My kids choose the games they play, but I exercise judgment in vetoing certain decisions. My example of the From Software titles were not games that I bought for them, or even played (in the case of Elden Ring), but rather titles that my boys were into because of their friend group playing it. They've been playing Night Reign lately and enjoying it. I think people read into my dismissal of Battlefield and Fortnite as indicative of some much larger pattern that they've had a really bad experience with, but I'm not sure that conclusion is warranted.
I was 100% on your side until you list FromSoftware games. As good as they are, they're a single-genre game developer that has a very narrow design and audience.
There's nothing more substantive or enduring about their games intrinsically, that's 100% you just projecting your own opinions about what games are 'enduring' onto your kids, and is not giving them the 'guidance' you seem to think it is.
Not really. I tend to favor single-player games because they can be effectively archived and played in several decades. Multiplayer games routinely just get killed by their publishers. So I do view single player games as intrinsically more enduring than their multiplayer counterparts.
I'm sorry you see it as projection onto my children. I'm keenly aware that many parents try to force their kids to live the life they lived, and I've been careful to not do that. But I understand that that's not coming through to you in this discussion. I appreciate the advice though.
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Come on, you can't claim with a straight face that something like Sekiro is not more substantive or enduring than, say, that Rocksteady Suicide Squad game.
Again, that’s you substituting your judgement for theirs. There’s nothing wrong participating in a fad btw. Free time doesn’t need to be “productive” by only consuming something exalted like From Software.
I substitute my judgment for theirs as a parent; that's intrinsic in the nature of the job.
As I said in my previous comment, my kids chose the From Software titles because their friend group plays it, so I don't think that's a particularly good example of me substituting my judgment for theirs.
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I feel so sorry for your kids. They deserve a better parent. Remember: your kids are NOT you and they DESERVE to have agency in their lives EVEN if it goes against your interests and desires.
My job is to guide them and use my judgment where their judgment is poor. That is intrinsic in the nature of parenting. Thank you for the guidance though. I understand that you feel strongly and that you hope my kids can be happy even though they're stuck with me as a parent. I do too!
That is such a sweeping statement. Part of what a parent does is guides kids to good decisions, and protect them from the consequences of bad ones. They need agency, and more as they get older, but you do not let them just do what you want.