Editorial | My parents and video games.

By Sam Coles:

Over the years you have had parents that do not understand the video game medium; however it has lessened over time due to gamers becoming parents themselves or older generations understanding that it is a form of entertainment. My parents use to think that games were terrible, well my Dad did as he didn’t quite grasp why I love the medium especially games with graphic violence. I want to talk about my experience with my parents and video games how they went from skeptical to accepting them.

This journey starts in the late 90’s with my older brothers, I was very young as I was only 5 years old in 1998 my brothers use to sneak games into the house that were not appropriate such as Killer Instinct and the original Grand Theft Auto. These games are crude by today’s standards, but my parents were outraged and took the games away and saw them as nothing more as violence for the sake of violence which I can somewhat understand with the old Grand Theft Auto games.  I have vague memories of the 90’s with video games, but I remember playing mostly Mario and Zelda games, I didn’t really play 15-18+ age rated games until the PlayStation 2 generation when I was around 11/12 years old.

When we got a PlayStation 2 in the house I was exposed to more mature games, even though I was still not quite old to play certain games. However my parents were more lenient with me due to me being the youngest, but they did limit me with certain games so I could play titles such as Grand Theft Auto III- San Andreas but if had Mortal Kombat on the front of the box that was a big no, no. I generally had to explain the game and give them the basic context about the game and make sure to tell them that I understand that things that are in the game are unacceptable in real life, so they would let me play these more graphic titles as they knew it was complete fiction but they still didn’t have an understanding about games. It wasn’t until I got an Xbox 360 they developed an interest in games, not to play them but to watch them as games were maturing with storytelling and visuals.

I first got an Xbox 360 for my 16^th birthday in 2009 with two games, those games were Halo 3 and the original Mass Effect, and this was where games were starting to mature with both visuals and storytelling as they moved out of their edgy teen phase. It wasn’t until I picked up a title called Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood where my Mum took an interest in the story, now don’t get me wrong my Mum plays games in a casual capacity hell she use to play the old arcade games back in 1970’s but never really had huge interest in them. It was fascinating because she would watch me play as if she was watching one of her soaps, when I would stop playing she would remark “I can’t wait to see what happens next”. 

The 7^th generation of consoles was where my parents generated an interest with games in terms of the storytelling, one time my mother decided to fold laundry in my room for some reason and I was playing Max Payne 3. Max Payne 3 is graphic with the slow motion gunplay, but my Mum loves over the top action and plus I found her smirking at some of the quips that Max was spouting. It all began when I purchased Red Dead Redemption back in 2010, my parents were used to hearing explosions coming from my room as I use to play a lot of Call of Duty, however to their surprise they mostly heard dialogue. They asked “what are you watching”? I would say “I’m not I’m playing” they were surprised due to how well written the dialogue was.

With the current generation of gaming they are very impressed with how games can convey a story, I showed them the latest Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer and they even want to give it a go as they are fans of spaghetti westerns from the 60’s and 70’s. It’s fascinating to see them go from thinking games are mindless wastes of time to an art form that is held in high regard next to films, books and theatre. It took them a while to understand but they have grown an appreciation for the medium as it is a new way of conveying a story to a younger audience.