Reasons Why Younger Gamers Don't Get Older RPGs?.

[Humanophage]

The problem might be that RPGs acquired a reputation as a dumb genre. Younger people play relatively complex non-actiony games like Crusader Kings or Rimworld just fine. They play challenging 'get gud' games like DOTA or Hearthstone. But with an RPG, they expect to see a movie with simplistic gameplay. Alternatively, they expect a NES graphics style game, where the movie is replaced with simple non-interactive one-liners.

Reading does seem to have something to do with it, but young people read a fair deal of dumb YA, so I wouldn't blame it on not reading books, but rather not liking to read in games for some reason.

 

[Davaris]

Attention spans are getting shorter due to media consumption. I watched a documentary on film making, and they showed how when cinema first started, camera shots would not change for 10 minutes. Then each decade, the rate of camera changing POV increased, and now the camera moves every couple of seconds. Its very distracting when you know what they are doing.

 

[KateMicucci]

Minecraft made billions. Its not graphics.

The problem might be that RPGs acquired a reputation as a dumb genre. Younger people play relatively complex non-actiony games like Crusader Kings or Rimworld just fine. They play challenging 'get gud' games like DOTA or Hearthstone. But with an RPG, they expect to see a movie with simplistic gameplay. Alternatively, they expect a NES graphics style game, where the movie is replaced with simple non-interactive one-liners.

Good point and something I'd never considered. Codexers like to think of rpgs as something complex and arcane but even many console trash action games have had RPG style stats and character building for over a decade.

 

[Ismaul]

I find that the DOS era RPGs actually do a lot more to stimulate my imagination than those of the Black Isle era;

True. Larian is king.

 

[Sykar]

Reasons Why Younger Gamers Don't Get Older RPGs?.​

Retardation.
Lack of mental capabilities.
Cretinism.
Imbecility.

The list goes on.

Games were a niche hobby back then so far fewer people were playing them. With the massive increase of their popularity you naturally get a lot more morons playing them now. On top of that games have become a lot more expensive to make which means you have to reach a bigger market and a good chunk of the market are idiots. As George Carlin once said, imagine how stupid the average person is and realize that half the population is even dumber than them.

 

[Pink Eye]

The problem might be that RPGs acquired a reputation as a dumb genre. Younger people play relatively complex non-actiony games like Crusader Kings or Rimworld just fine. They play challenging 'get gud' games like DOTA or Hearthstone. But with an RPG, they expect to see a movie with simplistic gameplay. Alternatively, they expect a NES graphics style game, where the movie is replaced with simple non-interactive one-liners.

Reading does seem to have something to do with it, but young people read a fair deal of dumb YA, so I wouldn't blame it on not reading books, but rather not liking to read in games for some reason.

It's just a lack of interest.

I have a brother who's a hardcore Starcraft 2 player. It's all he plays. All day. Every day. When he's on break from work; he's instead spending his break not sleeping by playing that game. I managed to get him to play Dark Sun by sitting by his side and walking him through it. He had fun creating his party. Rolling for stats and asking question. Thing is, even though he was enjoying the experience. Next day. He was back to playing Starcraft 2 and never touched Dark Sun ever again. It was the same thing with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. He was running around. Exploring the first world you crash into from opening. Talking to every fucking NPC. Reading every boring dialogue. Very much liking the game. However. Come morning. He completely forgot about it and went back to Starcraft 2.

Thing is. RPGs aren't this mystical thing that young people are unable to fathom due to some generational thing or some retarded bullshit. They're pretty easy to bite into and chew, especially if you had those handy dandy manuals that games used to ship with - which basically explain every nuance in concise manner, some manuals also had enemy lists, listing their weaknesses and how to beat them - essentially telling you how to chew your own food. There were also Cluebooks too. Which gave you the best way to beat the game as quickly as possible without any fuss. Nowadays RPGs don't have cluebooks or manuals. Instead it's all explained through in-game tutorials, tool tips, hints, though most people just search things up online if they have problems, having it explained by some other schmuck. Anyways. The genre is very approachable and accessible.

Truth is: Your young gamers aren't going to pull themselves away from Fortnite, League of Legends, DOTA, Starcraft, or whatever recent online multiplayer; to play something that they're simply not interested in. Yeah you can force them by sitting by their side, walking them through it, but they'll just go back to Starcraft or Fortnite the next day.

 

[Harthwain]

so I wouldn't blame it on not reading books, but rather not liking to read in games for some reason.

Who in his right mind would like reading boring crap, which is - sadly - the most common type of writing in games?

 

[barricade]

i'm 20. i come from fortnite and skyrim, basically. 2/3 years ago i had no idea what a Crpg was. never heard of it before. curiosity brought me into this world, i was playing skyrim for months and i got bored. found the game too empty, it was lacking something but didn't know what exactly since it was my only reference in this genre.
so i got curious, i googled "skyrim similar games", got into oblivion, hated it, then oblivion took me to morrowind, and morrowind took me to baldur's gate etc etc. all these games looked amazing to me, but at first i couldn't get into those games because it was a chore to make them work on modern systems, besides, most of these were also lacking resolution scaling.

but at some point the attraction got too strong, and i finally got into them. now i can't stop playing crpgs.

the fact that i wasn't playing old rpgs before has nothing to do with the fact that if i read or not, and it also has nothing to do with the fact that you guys think old crpgs are too hard for casuals (they're not by the way, crpgs are not hard at all. never read more than 3 pages of a crpg manual and never had any trouble beating those games. the only challenging crpgs i've played were dungeon rats and AoD), i never played old rpgs before because i've never heard of them. as simple as that.

 

[Pink Eye]

the only challenging crpgs i've played were dungeon rats and AoD

Now go play Knights of the Chalice 2: Augury of Chaos, to become even more manly.

 

[laclongquan]

My main conclusion is this: I doubt modern gamers have read a book in their life.

Speaking like an old fags out of touch with reality.

These days the youths doesnt read paper books or official ebooks released by publishers, true.

But that's because those publishers are out of touch with reality, or full of their own political agenda. So the youths dont even want to read their products.

These days they read amateur or free novels on Net first, and if they like what they read, they would read official ebooks later. That way if they dont like author's agenda they can smear them full of shit, figuratively. Good luck doing that to official publishers' authors~

After a long time reading amateur writings, now when I read any official novels by official authors printed/sold by official publishers.... I feel like jumping up and down in their comment threads and listing all their sins, all their shitty agenda... and I cant do that because modders will shut me down, ban and blacklist me faster than light.

Case in point: RPG, books and games, are full of their own political agenda. That's fine and all, provided that we can jump up and down listing all their shitty points of arguments in public. But no, they wont do that. They will pretend that they are santimonious apolitical saints and god help anyone dare to prove otherwise~ THAT is why people no longer favour traditional RPG publishers or traditional book publishers.

 

[barricade]

the only challenging crpgs i've played were dungeon rats and AoD

Now go play Knights of the Chalice 2: Augury of Chaos, to become even more manly.

if it's similar to the first one well then no thanks

 

[Jvegi]

Most people play what they know. We know the games from the late 90's. Most of us who claim to play early 90's crpgs are way over 30. I'm 32 and have played some early 90's games, even enjoyed a couple (Star Control 2, Quest for Glory and many more), but it was at a time when I only had access to a very potato computer.

It takes a strong push to break out of this limitation, and statistically, most people won't be pushed like that. I was pushed by the lack of a proper pc, and I was already into crpgs.

 

[Hace El Oso]

decline, lowered IQ, and general spastication.

modern gamers have(n't) read a book in their life.

It's the same thing.

Reading does seem to have something to do with it, but young people read a fair deal of dumb YA, so I wouldn't blame it on not reading books, but rather not liking to read in games for some reason.

This is only girls and women, the last younger 'first world' demographic that still reads at all.

 

[Geckabor]

Just look at all the codexers that refuse to play any modern RPG, irregardless of how good it actually is. Reverse that and you probably get why a decent chunk of younger gamers don't try older games.
It's also not a gaming specific thing. Have you ever tried recommending older movies to people? Or a foreign movie with subtitles? Most people just can't get over these 1cm tall barriers, so they just decide to rot in their comfort zones.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I do not believe young people are stupid. I believe that the overstimulation that tech companies actively seek to create interferes with their development of executive functioning and makes them struggle with overcoming challenges and roadblocks (like adapting to an older game with an alien control scheme.) The incredible blast of dopamine stimulation you get from modern hyper-addictive games and Twitter makes it require a lot of effort for people who are into those things to get into older games. If social media and modern games disappeared for a while then all of a sudden the older RPG's would be just as appealing for a fun starved zoomer brain. Not sure if there's any statistics on this but you'd likely see an incredible rise in rates of "ADHD" as time goes on and things like Twitter become more and more popular. Consider it noteworthy how the creators of Disco Elysium specifically wrote the game to mimic the rhythms and experience of reading Twitter.

The reason I believe this is because I am a zoomer and it's happened to me. Thankfully I managed to get past some of my zoomerism and enjoy older games and novels but it takes a lot of effort when my brain has been thoroughly ruined by all the overstimulation of the modern internet and gaming.

I am not a zoomer and I noticed it has happened to me and I actively fight against it...I grew up in 80's, and as an 11 and 12 year old could sit down and learn AD&D or a complicated board wargame from Avalon Hill in an afternoon by reading the instructions. I am positive my 11 and 12 year old-self had more patience and ability to focus than my current 51 year old self, and I think its probably mostly due to modern technology.

That being said, I am aware of this and I try and resist it and I do things to fight back against it in various ways, because it bothers me that I was better able to focus when I was 12 than I can now at 50-- that is not good or right and likely has many more consequences than we can imagine...

 

[Dadd]

I think a big reason is because for new players the controls are unintuitive with older RPGs, like Darklands, and even later ones like Fallout, for example, where right-clicking to change the mode of the cursor, slow combat, and so on are enough to make people give up and play things they are more familiar with. People want to press a key and make something happen, not go through combat orders each turn or go back and forth between the inventory and the main screen repeatedly. Sometimes just getting these games to run on your computer without them breaking in some way is a chore and prevents people from getting into the games.

 

[Falksi]

I mod a handful of Facebook groups with between 15k & 45k members, and a lot of younger gamers do enjoy older RPGs.

BUT...the RPGs they enjoy are beginner as fuck. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy....these type of RPGs constantly get circle jerked and worshipped by them. When it comes tp PC RPGS I get and agree with some of their complaints about stuff like clunky controls and bad UI, but Jesus wept the second the stabilizers are off and they just have to explore and search for solutions themselves it's like watching a goldfish trying to ride a motorbike, flapping around like cunt and constant posts about "where's this? where's that"....just use fucking Google you spastics .

It's just a soft generation which doesn't enjoy challenge or figuring things out themselves. Mollycoddled. "Nintendo culture" is to blame IMO, a watering down of all genres from when the SNES arrived and decided that Mario-World level difficulty combined with McDonald's junk-food disposability was the route forward. Sure there are exceptions, but this general philosophy ate away at everything, from RPGs to Music to society itself.

Good thing is we're gonna be the first generation of old-folk who actually terrorizes and kicks the living fuck out of our the younger gen, which should be a laugh.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

This thread is degenerate. A combination of self-absorption and old men yelling at kids on their lawn. If you want people to enjoy what is regarded as the digital equivalent to "ball in a cup", write a persuassive review about it. Keep it succinct. These threads are counter productive.

 

[barricade]

I mod a handful of Facebook groups with between 15k & 45k members, and a lot of younger gamers do enjoy older RPGs.

BUT...the RPGs they enjoy are beginner as fuck. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy....these type of RPGs constantly get circle jerked and worshipped by them. I get and agree with some of their complaints about stuff like clunky controls and bad UI, but Jesus wept the second the stabilizers are off and they just have to explore and search for solutions themselves it's like watching a goldfish trying to ride a motorbike, flapping around like cunt and constant posts about "where's this? where's that"....just use fucking Google you spastics .

It's just a soft generation which doesn't enjoy challenge or figuring things out themselves. Mollycoddled. "Nintendo culture" is to blame IMO, a watering down of all genres from when the SNES arrived and decided that Mario-World level difficulty combined with McDonald's junk-food disposability was the route forward. Sure there are exceptions, but this general philosophy ate away at everything, from RPGs to Music to society itself.

Good thing is we're gonna be the first generation of old-folk who actually terrorizes and kicks the living fuck out of our the younger gen, which should be a laugh.

last time i checked, the crpg community (which is mainly filled with 30+yo) has tons of forums with threads about things that people can't figure out by themselves, like "how to build this characters/which stats are best/where is this/where is that/how to do this/how to kill this guy" etc.

which is funny since most crpg aren't even really challenging. i don't know what makes you crpg veterans think that it requires good gaming skills to beat a crpg. like, you guys are pretty fucking far from playing the hardest games in the world lol. but you need to play something else than 80s/90s rpgs to realize that.

and also, last time i checked, most 40+yo players are the biggest casuals in the whole gaming community.

 

[smaug]

It has nothing to do with IQ or endurance. It’s about appeal/addictive and what’s currently popular (like what pink eye said).

First, the hard truth is that most older CRPGS are shit with a small percentage that’s actually worth playing. Second, there’s simply no interest because classic CRPG’s/RPG’s in general are a niche genre as they always have been.

 

[Sjukob]

To get into older games, you need to first become dissatisfied with modern gaming (because so long as you are satisfied, you have no reason to look to older games), and that requires so much time that most people simply don't reach that state, or if they do, it'll probably be by the time they're old enough to complain about how the younger generation is full of low-IQ retards that cannot appreciate the classics.

When I was 14 or something I thought that modern games were mostly pretty bad and that nobody really knew how to make them good. Later on I learned that "pretty bad" was an underestimation. The reason I joined codex was because I was looking at Skyrim and couldn't figure out how that piece of shit could sell at all, so I wanted to see some like-minded people. I am 24 now.

Just wanted to share a personal view.

 

[Falksi]

I mod a handful of Facebook groups with between 15k & 45k members, and a lot of younger gamers do enjoy older RPGs.

BUT...the RPGs they enjoy are beginner as fuck. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy....these type of RPGs constantly get circle jerked and worshipped by them. I get and agree with some of their complaints about stuff like clunky controls and bad UI, but Jesus wept the second the stabilizers are off and they just have to explore and search for solutions themselves it's like watching a goldfish trying to ride a motorbike, flapping around like cunt and constant posts about "where's this? where's that"....just use fucking Google you spastics .

It's just a soft generation which doesn't enjoy challenge or figuring things out themselves. Mollycoddled. "Nintendo culture" is to blame IMO, a watering down of all genres from when the SNES arrived and decided that Mario-World level difficulty combined with McDonald's junk-food disposability was the route forward. Sure there are exceptions, but this general philosophy ate away at everything, from RPGs to Music to society itself.

Good thing is we're gonna be the first generation of old-folk who actually terrorizes and kicks the living fuck out of our the younger gen, which should be a laugh.

last time i checked, the crpg community (which is mainly filled with 30+yo) has tons of forums with threads about things that people can't figure out by themselves, like "how to build this characters/which stats are best/where is this/where is that/how to do this/how to kill this guy" etc.

which is funny since most crpg aren't even really challenging. i don't know what makes you crpg veterans think that it requires good gaming skills to beat a crpg. like, you guys are pretty fucking far from playing the hardest games in the world lol. but you need to play something else than 80s/90s rpgs to realize that.

and also, last time i checked, most 40+yo players are the biggest casuals in the whole gaming community.

There's a big difference between wanting to know an optimal built to beat the beast of 1000 eyes, and how to beat Tryrano in Chrono Trigger. And it's not just about difficulty, it's about when to trigger initiative.

This got posted last night, and I regularly see levels...

James graduated in 2008. I had that game easily licked as a 12 year old in the early 90's.

As for "40+yo" players the biggest casuals, how many can you find who've done no-death runs of Eliminate Down on the hardest setting? Or beaten Blades of Vengeance or Chakan The Forever Man without using save states?

 

[barricade]

and i'm pretty sure you can find players your age who won't be able to beat shining force, as you can also find a 10yo who can beat the game. age has nothing to do with it. it just depends on your gaming background, and i'm not even so sure about that.

 

[Hace El Oso]

and i'm pretty sure you can find players your age who won't be able to beat shining force, as you can also find a 10yo who can beat the game. age has nothing to do with it. it just depends on your gaming background, and i'm not even so sure about that.

"There are older gamers who aren't good at that game too, therefore the measurable retardation of young people like myself is fake news, checkmate oldfags "

 

[Bad Sector]

People whining about graphics are on the wrong track.

I recently saw people saying that they didn't play Bioshock despite the good reputation it had because the graphics were dated. FFS, you can claim anything about how Bioshock is bad as an immersive sim (and it'd be true), but if nothing else the visuals were among its strongest points by far.

The last time i had this sort of shock was some years ago when someone claimed that KOTOR's visuals were too dated for them.

So yeah, i don't think people whining about graphics are on the wrong track. Though i think what thesecret1 mentioned is way closer to the truth: "The games have outdated graphics, often antiquated controls, often ask you to read the manual, and rarely have any interesting new features [..] To get into older games, you need to first become dissatisfied with modern gaming (because so long as you are satisfied, you have no reason to look to older games)".

People do not get into old games because there are tons of new games - and even those with subpar visuals (or even those who imitate retro visuals) tend to at least have modern controls and are designed to be picked up immediately instead of requiring going through a manual.