Gamer’s Grasp: Old Gamers

If being a kid has taught anyone anything, it's that adults ruin anything cool. Whether it be songs, movies or television shows, the second people's mother's start getting involved the fun gets sucked out and everyone needs to find a new thing.

In games however, the young people who created franchises and made them popular decades ago (guys like Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier, Will Wright or Tim Schafer) are still in the industry.

Only they're not young anymore, and their classic franchises are starting to hit major milestones.

Gaming classics such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario Bros. have recently celebrated their 25th anniversary.

Even more modern classics like Pokémon or Twisted Metal will hit their 20th anniversaries within the next three years.

These games have managed to last decades, with games on multiple generations of consoles due to not only their iconic presence on the market, but due the fact that they've had a solid fan-base.

Another side of the fact, however, is that while these games get older, so do their original players.

With technological innovations aimed at broadening the consumer market for video games, what has also helped bring gaming mainstream is that gamers have continued to play games well past the original 18-24 demographic.

Parents who have grown up playing video games are currently playing alongside their children, tightening the demographic gap. This is radically different from a generation where it was children who played games and adults who did not.

These adult gamers, however, are not always passive participants in the medium, as the gaming industry is filled with nostalgia.

These memories from yester-year often cloud older fan's judgment on where the industry should be going, as they keep looking backwards to how games used to be "in their day."

These are the types of fans who scoffed at "The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" before even playing the game, since in their minds "Ocarina of Time" was the pinnacle of the franchise and nothing could possible match up.

The reason seasoned games don't change much over time is because whenever they try to move too far away from the games that made them love, those who love the games start whining and complaining to the point where the publisher is scared off by the threat of bad sales, and therefore forces developers to keep making the same game repeatedly.

With mobile and PC platforms are morphing into practically a breeding ground for independent creativity, perhaps it's time to look forward, and be more welcoming to up-and-coming developers.

As video games continue to embrace new technologies, it's about time to embrace new creators as well.