Vice suggests Millennial video game enthusiasts suck it up and admit they are old

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/30/vice-suggests-millennial-video.html

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Filthy casual. (Just like me.)

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Clearly you are a filthy casual @jlw

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I can’t even remember which invert-axis settings I prefer anymore, and spend a good few minutes toggling them all until a game starts feeling right.

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I wonder sometimes how much getting old might impact my ability to play certain games. I have a friend who recently tried playing some Starcraft 2 (after a long hiatus) and decided their hands just couldn’t do it anymore. I’ve started to notice my hand get tired after a day of typing. I don’t think my ability to pay attention to everything going on on a large, complex screen is near what it was when I was playing WoW.

But I guess I’ve made my peace with how good I’m going to be. I’m not going to win Punch Out blindfolded, or have the world record in Final Fantasy speedruns, or win the Dark Souls trilogy consecutively without leveling or getting hit. The amazing this is that I can watch someone else do it.

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This year I’ve gotten into VR gaming with the Oculus Quest, and let me tell you: “getting too old for this shit” is a real thing.

For example, VR boxing is boxing, minus the getting hit in the face part. It takes actual cardiovascular stamina and arm strength to do well. I couldn’t lift my arms for two days after my first match.

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Even in games where fast reaction and aim is critical its still possible to be effective as long as your overall game sense is spot on, someone of younger age is set up to have an easier time because they can grind out the time to gain the needed skills to succeed plus having naturally faster reaction its less factors to overcome. But i don’t believe that someone of older age can’t play at a high competitive level, as i said if their basics and game sense isn’t good then nothing you do will help.

I’m in my mid-30’s and i still play Overwatch regularly and what’s helped me get better is playing a ton of deathmatch, i understand what duels and matchups i can be aggressive on though i also know that because i havent been playing much Quickplay and Comp there’s still a lot more i need to do to get really competitive but i have no interest in Comp. Pretty happy just playing deathmatch, its less stressful.

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I think this is the case for anyone whose first joystick-controls-camera experience was a flight simulator, rather than an FPS. When most kids my age were playing Halo, I was playing TIE Fighter (already a nearly-forgotten classic at that point - I was in diapers when that game was new, I found a copy at a garage sale)… now I need inverted Y-axis on everything and my friends think I’m the crazy one.

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Started reading the article and thought: “Wait, this guy was struggling with Moira? I think he’s probably just really bad at Overwatch”

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I would argue it could be about the devices being used?

I now have a wrist rest for my keyboard and mouse, as well as a mechanical gaming keyboard, and a Naga epic multi button gaming mouse. using hot keys and the thumb pad helps my APM immensely…not that I am trying to be a pro or anything. But it does aid me in not having sore hands or wrists after a couple hours of gaming.

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I started playing Moira cause I saw so many ‘play of the game’ moments with that character. I got a play of the game first time.

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I gave up on online multiplayer games, and have been slowly working my way through the list of games I always swore I’d beat one day. There aren’t any titles made after 2001, for better or for worse.

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Welcome to your new life…

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ColorlessScalyHermitcrab-size_restricted

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You whippersnappers with your four-switch 2600’s.

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One way around it I found is to play co-op games such as all the Borderlands games.

Then it’s less of a competition and you seem less bad.

And also to sneak in extra time so you level faster than your kids do. :slight_smile: Keep 2 or so levels ahead and you die less often…

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I mean, there are very good reasons to give up on those anyway.

L’enfer, c’est les autres

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Are the stats skewed at all by the fact that millennials are still in the “proving ourselves professionally, often with very young children at home” phase, which limits our grind-time and maximizes our sleep-deprived weakness?

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Moira is a pretty decent character, her not needing to have spot-on aim does make her desirable for people that struggle with accuracy but if your positioning and playmaking is bad you’ll still get punished pretty fast. Especially at higher skill levels Moira becomes harder and harder to play, but overall i find her pretty fun to mess around with. Unless its Deathmatch, people that play Moira in Deathmatch are the worst and must love ruining other people’s fun.

As in all things I suspect this ignores the whole “millennials don’t have money” thing. Millennials work more hours, take less time off, and get less out of it than previous generations. And not for the popularly assumed ruin everything reasons of being workaholics who hate fun and worship avocados. Its fairly well established that millennials actually have less free time than Gen-Xers do currently, or did at a similar point in their lives.

And that’s before you get to the obvious fact that a teenager requires less of your time than a toddler or infant. And a younger group of people is going to tend towards having younger kids.

Now pardon me while I return to destroying the market for bar soap; shopping malls; and all inclusive, prepackaged tours of well tread tourist destinations.

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