That was such a weird take from moms of the era. I remember hearing it all the time as a kid, and I thought it was absolutely stupid. Now that I’m all grown up, I still think it’s absolutely stupid.
Video games took over from pinball machines in arcades, which had been popular and making money for decades.
I am old enough to remember seeing the first space invaders machine arriving in a pinball parlour in 1979. It was a massive hit. By 1982, arcade video games were already making serious money.
Yeah, these days it’s obvious that video games are the next logical step in media consumption. First we had audio. Then we had audio+video. Now we have audio+video+interaction. You can literally watch a movie inside of a video game, if you care to.
But back then, the audio and video qualities of games weren’t yet terribly developed. You could still easily find board games, or heck, sports, that were more complex than Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
I can definitely see that one would think, it’s a novelty and not be able to imagine how cineastic games would become, or that some even contain books worth of history lessons.
Except the greatest educational game of all time was already ten years old and dead from dysentery by the time she was speaking.
I think it’s more a case of her certainty coming from a lack of knowledge about the subject and the assumption that because she doesn’t know about it that it doesn’t exist.
I mean, yeah, I am also assuming that she was no expert on the matter. We’re saying that it was an understandable opinion for a lay person or even someone who kept up with the bigger titles. It certainly wasn’t easy back then to know about all kinds of games…
I loved my Colecovision. It blew that boring old, one button having Atari out of the water. We played it as a family. The games were fun. New games are lost on me completely. Every one of them is too complicated to be fun.
Honestly, this is not an unreasonable take for 1982.
The most recent home console would’ve been the Colecovision and the most popular arcade game would’ve been Donkey Kong.
The NES was still 3 years away and she likely never heard of any of the more narrative PC games of the time like Adventure or Zork.
The only bad part of this take is the insinuation that the only things that last are educational
That was such a weird take from moms of the era. I remember hearing it all the time as a kid, and I thought it was absolutely stupid. Now that I’m all grown up, I still think it’s absolutely stupid.
Sounds like you learnt something.
Are you saying you didn’t spend hours with your slide rule as a kid?
Also the video game market crashed the next year.
Video games took over from pinball machines in arcades, which had been popular and making money for decades.
I am old enough to remember seeing the first space invaders machine arriving in a pinball parlour in 1979. It was a massive hit. By 1982, arcade video games were already making serious money.
Yeah, these days it’s obvious that video games are the next logical step in media consumption. First we had audio. Then we had audio+video. Now we have audio+video+interaction. You can literally watch a movie inside of a video game, if you care to.
But back then, the audio and video qualities of games weren’t yet terribly developed. You could still easily find board games, or heck, sports, that were more complex than Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
I can definitely see that one would think, it’s a novelty and not be able to imagine how cineastic games would become, or that some even contain books worth of history lessons.
Except the greatest educational game of all time was already ten years old and dead from dysentery by the time she was speaking.
I think it’s more a case of her certainty coming from a lack of knowledge about the subject and the assumption that because she doesn’t know about it that it doesn’t exist.
Oregon Trail was not ten years old then.
Oh yeah my mistake, the version we know wouldn’t come out for three more years the original text based one was ten years old
Holy shit my bad. I thought there was no way this dated back to 1972. Actually dates back to 1971.
I was thinking of the version I played on an Apple in the 80s.
Clearly that was not the first incarnation.
I was there Gandalf…
I mean, yeah, I am also assuming that she was no expert on the matter. We’re saying that it was an understandable opinion for a lay person or even someone who kept up with the bigger titles. It certainly wasn’t easy back then to know about all kinds of games…
I think everyone is looking at audio + visual + interaction + immersion as the next step but no one’s quite figured it out yet.
I just finished a session of Asgard’s Wrath 2 and we’re definitely getting there.
She was likely to be eaten by a grue.
I loved my Colecovision. It blew that boring old, one button having Atari out of the water. We played it as a family. The games were fun. New games are lost on me completely. Every one of them is too complicated to be fun.