Current Events > Why is societal hatred of video games so persistent?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've always wondered why it is that video games have received such sustained hate from older people when, at this point, enough time has passed for people that were playing video games in the '70s or early '80s to have grown "old." Is it because there were not as many people playing games back then? Am I overstating how much of an issue that this actually is?

Gamers are the most oppressed group of people in the history of the universe

There isnt as much hate or any at all now? People know better than to call every game with demon looking monsters, satanic. Games like GTA and MK already broke all possible boundaries of violence and adult themes and most players nowadays are 18+ with the average age being 30's.

For the same reason that some gamers have a persistent hatred of 'sportsball'.

'Why are you wasting so much time and energy on that thing I neither like, nor understand?'

But yes, 'societal hatred' seems an overstatement.

Handful of factors.

First you have older generation people who just don't get it. They are dying off, buy they still raised a generation of people, some of whom inherited their beliefs.

You are correct that people who gamed in the 70s and 80s are now old, and you'd think they'd know better, but they were raised by and worked for the above generations. Maybe they did really like gaming but ultimately had to give it up to meet expectations of that generation. So they also expect the younger generations to do the same.

Then you have capital G Gamers. A minority of the player base sure, but an incredibly vocal one, and one that basically lives up to all the negative stereotypes that non-gamers have.

This isn't a unique thing to gaming either, radio and TV both went through cycles where people looked down upon frequent recreational use. They got adopted a bit quicker though because they had a utility function in delivering news. And the scheduled nature of the programming meant that it was hard for people to spend all their time listening/watching.

And yeah, I wouldn't call it hatred at this point. I have no problem telling others I like to game, including employers and the like. But it definitely doesn't have TV's ubiquitous societal acceptance either. Tell someone you spent the weekend binge watching a season of a show and they'll be like "cool". Tell that same person you played a video game for 12 hours and they'll judge you a bit.