My nephews (10 and 13) stayed with me a couple of weeks ago, and I got a chance to see them game. And yeah they are playing mostly Fortnite these days, but they love it. Further, it actually looks pretty intense. Like the editing and jockeying for a clean shot is more nuanced than what I was getting up to.
Like was my obsession with Quake 2 DM that much more elevated? True we had a lot more variety with mods and maps, but if I’m being honest most of my time was just spent running around Q2DM1/The Edge and a handful of other vanilla maps. I did love that Homer skin though, lol.
Anyway, I see them hooting and laughing and the whole time they’re chatting with their little friends from school. I can see the joy in it. I wish it wasn’t on this centralised, monetised, company platform. But I can see what they like in it.
E found it
It’s the metaverse in practice but don’t let any reptile people know that
Fortnite gets a lot of hate but they’ve built something unique.
And then lock it up.
something unique, better even, something fun.
In their defense, games starting from 2016 kinda stopped having any actually meaningful graphical upgrades.
I think that’s the point they’re making.
Ehhhh a PS5 game can look a lot better than a 2016 AAA
I’m not saying it’s everything, and I’m not saying every meaningful upgrade is worthwhile, I’m just saying.
I’m not sure it’s about graphics. Fortnight was never king of graphics mountain. Its probably favored games in the consciousness. But i think millennials still apart of the Minecraft era
My take from this meme is that Zoomers and later are more “captured” by a few big platforms than previous ones.
And perhaps earlier ones, too.
Like, my aunts and relatives are trapped on Facebook sharing Trumpy memes. Kids younger than me seems to be really into ultra-short videos or mobile-ish games. The only people I know that know how to use a desktop PC, beyond the bare minimum for work are… about my age? Other than a senior dev.
This is a huge generalization and small sample, but still. I’m not worried about other generations doing things I don’t like (that’s always true, and a good thing), I’m worried about them being more trapped.
My take from this meme is that Zoomers and later are more “captured” by a few big platforms than previous ones.
Steam games have been around for a lot longer than 10 years. So has Nintendo. There’s no reason a Zoomer wouldn’t have played Stardew Valley or Undertale or Mario Odyssey or Wii Tennis.
Like, my aunts and relatives are trapped on Facebook sharing Trumpy memes. Kids younger than me seems to be really into ultra-short videos or mobile-ish games. The only people I know that know how to use a desktop PC, beyond the bare minimum for work are… about my age?
I keep seeing this complaint. I’ll never understand it. I definitely know family that have mired themselves in Facebook memes. But its silly to pretend my Blessed Lemmy-4chan-channel is materially better than their Barbaric Facebook-4chan-channel. Honestly, just amazed they finally came around on computers at all. So many of my parent’s generation couldn’t even check email twenty years ago.
Similarly, the Office Space Millennials seem to have completely forgotten that their non-technical peers exist. Like they’ve never met an auto mechanic or a plumber or a doctor their age who has struggled with using a computer. I used to do IT for a physicians clinic and it was the Medical Assistants doing all the office work. The RNs and MDs couldn’t do shit. Which was ironic, because so much of the IT upgrade was about reducing staff size… but the MAs were the ones who grasped the tech the fastest while the actual medical staff avoided tech like the plague.
And sure, kids half your age don’t know DOS commands because they don’t use DOS. But there’s no shortage of Zoomer/GenA computer geeks. I ran into a gaggle of robotics club Alphas in downtown, near the local convention center, just last week. Every year my office fills up with interns who built their own PCs and threw up their own home PLEX servers for their parents who are my age.
Some of you are just so damned cloistered, insisting the three 14 year olds you know aren’t doing Angelina Jolie shit from Hackers in their basements before they’re even old enough to drive. But pull down your reading glasses, squint a bit, and you’ll see plenty of tech savvy folks younger than you.
I started with Atari 2600 on a black and white TV. PS2 is the newest console I have. I’m still buying and playing PS2 games. Haven’t seen a need to go any further (other than a couple games I’d like to play.)
Real boomer energy. While graphics improvement flattened out, other things (that are more important) have continued improving.
Off the top of my head… Zoomers got: Disco Elysium, The Outer Wilds, Undertale, and a million other indies.
You missed the entire point of the post
What’s the point? I thought I got it, and that I agreed, but now I’m not sure anymore.
Top post plays multiple types of games. Bottom posts entire gaming life is spent in one game.
Thanks. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I also like variety.
Its not accurate at all. Sure some people now do only play fornite but people back in the day only played cs or tf2 or wow or runescape or any RTS. The difference is the games now get content updates whereas back in the day these people were playing the exact game over and over for 10 years.
I mean, millennials also got those
2 of those examples are 6 years old, and the other is turning 10 soon
Zoomers aren’t teenagers anymore. Well, some might be; I’m not sure where the cutoff is exactly, but the oldest zoomers might be 30 already.
Though I’d also say that millennials, Xers, and boomers got each of those games, too, if they were interested. Hell, even the silent and greatest generations probably have members that enjoyed those games, though probably not so much for the WW1 generation.
And in the other direction, I’ve enjoyed games that were popular before I was born, so if gens alpha and beta want to claim them as well, I’d allow it.
Most of these titles don’t have mainstream appeal though. The example is true for the majority of players.
I do love me some indie games (probably 95% of what I play atm are Noita and Balatro) but I’ll admit it was really cool as a child / teenager / young adult to see the improvements over time.
Minecraft for me lol, from age 9 to 20 (zoomer)
I Love resident evil 4. Great game.
Awesome game.
Gen X version:
Year 1: Pong
Year 5: PacMan
Year 10: Super Mario Brothers
Man Super Mario Bros. was huuuuuuge
We got lied to so hard on cover art, it took decades to believe anything.
This site shows some top lies, and shows that Activision, didn’t lie so much.
I remember being so impressed with King’s Quest 7’s graphics that looked like a cartoon. Big improvement over KQ6, which itself was a big improvement over KQ5, which was so much of an improvement gameplay-wise over KQ4 that I gave up trying to play 4 after later getting it on some abandonware site (it was a “type what you want to do but the engine will have no idea what you intend unless you use the very specific wording they programmed into each scene”).
But yeah, before that, cover art often had little to do with the game itself. I have a vivid memory of receiving a birthday gift and experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions as I was excited to get a new video game, then dissapointed when I realized it might be a movie instead, follwed by happiness again when I noticed the Nintendo logo, confirming it was a game. The cover art just looked like the generic cartoon art that was popular in the late 80s/early 90s.
Oh and on that note, most cartoons sucked back then compared to today. I can understand why many people thought cartoons were just for kids because most of them back then were so awful only kids could enjoy them and even the better ones were usually only able to trigger wholesome kind of vibes (like most Disney ones prior to Aladdin). There were some exceptions, like Looney Tunes. But most of it was like minimum effort to sell some shitty toys.
Don’t you dare knock Adventure!
VR actually went through this from 2014-2024 or so. the original Oculus DK had such chonky pixels, very rudimentary tracking, game integration sucked, no hand controls. it rapidly got better to the point where playing Riven is like straight up being teleported into the world…
…except for like, being able to run around or touch things. so it’s stayed niche.
Not as widespread as the systems shown above though. Older VR games and even VR in general is pretty niche.
What’s the status of VR right now? Any major advancement? I know oculus got bought by Facebook, so no way in hell I’d ever get that.
I have to think it’ll stay an arcade and power user thing indefinitely. The full experience needs large, clear section of your house, and housing is getting more expensive. Break down your costs per sq ft and see that you’re paying an awful lot for it.
Games like Beat Saber don’t have to move around too much, but the experience will always be limited if games have to keep the player in one spot and can’t use room scale. That said, Beat Saber can be pretty decent cardio workout if you put effort into swinging your arms (as opposed to lazily flicking your wrists around). Sweat buildup on the headset can be an issue, though. Keep some alcohol wipes around.
Racing/airplane sim stuff is one of the best uses. People who are into that are willing to drop a lot of money.
For VR to truly shine, I think we need brain interfaces like the Matrix or SAO. Though I think even that will be a double edged sword as people train their brains to do VR stuff which feels similar enough to RL that it might be hard to context switch. Not to mention I doubt I’ll be able to trust any corporations creating those either on the maliciousness angle or the competence one.
Even compared to what currently exists, full VR experiences will be fundamentally different. Current accessibility tools seem to be “provide sensory data to the brain or react to brain activity and let the brain figure out how to use it”, whereas true VR would be more like “suspend these normal comnections and replace them with virtual ones that reproduce reality well enough for people to enjoy using it, doing normal body stuff plus maybe things that aren’t possible like flying and magic with thought alone”.
That said, if you can handle moving around in a VR world with a control stick without getting nausea, headset VR is continuing to improve, though the pace seems to be a bit slower because I think the bubble has deflated somewhat.
Strong rumors of Valve’s new VR launching this year. Quite excited for that. Otherwise, the status (in my opinion) is stagnant. I still have fun occasionally getting into VR though.
regrettably, Meta is the state of the art for VR. the Meta Quest 3 is stunningly crisp for the price point. it’s almost retina-scale with the pixels, the head/spatial tracking is extremely accurate and doesn’t require any base station or wired attachment, and you can fluidly stream VR games from your PC wirelessly at 1080p and like 120fps with nearly no latency or reality sickness.
I played Myst and Riven while I was sick with COVID last year, and it was one of the top five visual experiences of my lifetime (along with seeing the Grand Canyon and taking psychedelics.)
Meta has also recently finally cracked the holy grail of non-chonky AR glasses with full FoV, though the gallium nitride waveguide process is quite expensive and yields are too poor for them to sell it. but they look like slightly nerdy glasses that let you see holograms superimposed on your vision, even outdoors in the light.
unfortunately, VR is still anti-social and there’s not much content there, and the company leading the way is awful. but even just for Riven alone it was worth it to me.
Ah hopefully other companies will advance becuase there is no way I’m giving my money to that shit company
Valve Index is still a damn good headset if you want to jump in. They leapfrogged everyone else and had the best one for a few years. Even if it’s been surpassed now, it doesn’t have the corporate issues that the others do.
Yeah holy shit, we really went through eras playing games, theyve pretty much only ever known fortnite, like modern 18 year olds
Sounding like a boomer already lol.
Nah, zoomers went through the whole indie horror game gauntlet, Minecraft, terraria, etc.
Edit Addendum: Also, don’t forget about games like Friday Night Funkin and the plethora of mods that it spawned. The Five Nights at Freddy’s fandom was basically a cult at some point and still memed. Cuphead was a big enough phenomenon to get it’s own animated series. Stardew Valley is another game that will doubtless have influence beyond it’s years. Motherfucking Undertale, sans memes, etc. VA-11 HALL-A was pretty popular for a while too. Don’t forget about Among Us. Lethal Company is still getting updates. SCP Secret Laboratory is another one people forget about, but is still a game with a dedicated player base. Kenshi…oh man great game released in 2018. Fucking Persona 5 and Metaphor ReFantaszio, great games. MiSide is a new game, a horror game that doubtless has a small yet dedicated following. No Man’s Sky is great, especially after they fixed it. Many Gen-Z doubtless remember Subnautica. Ultrakill is something that is quite special.
You may be right among us, lethal company, 5 nights, generation, they were raised by those types of games, not what we had, theres a fat difference still, but they definitely had variety, im not saying they didnt, if my friends and I had modern roblox/fortnite growing up we wouldve exclauively played that too, we only played what we could all play together so it would be the cod/sports game we all bought that year, ocassionally trying mid ftp titles like dcuo
Always gonna be ppl who branch out and those that dont, overall they got more variety for free than we did
All those games you mentioned are like what I played growing up and im mid 20s
thats not zoomers tho, thats over 18, 20+ at least, idk my nephews have never bought a game its just fortnite and/or roblox
Bro, older cohort Gen-Z is around 27 years old man. Unless you are talking about Gen-Alpha.
Oh were def talking about alpha then, were talking about highschool aged kids and younger zs been college
I mean, they’ve decided to stick with fortnite, roblox, minecraft, whatever. But, there have been thousands of great games released that they just chose not to play.
Either only Fortnite, or a mix of that + Minecraft + Roblox.
Shit like this made me think we would hit singularity around now,
Oh boy, was I naive
I did 10 yrs of TF2. Better graphics might have come in that time, but I only noticed the phlogastinator.
Pyro pre nerf had one of the most op build of degreaser (any) flare gun and axtinguisher
It was also very fun, along the lines of scout cleaver sandman pre nerf
Still using dead ringer after they nerfed it several times over lol
Gen X version:
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(Had to cheat and put an arcade game for 1980, because I’m not aware of any notable console games from that year. In reality the console games from then looked much, much worse than Pac-Man)
My first game was pacman, on Atari 2600, that would have worked instead of the arcade version.
Came out in 1982, I was looking for a 1980 game. And boy, is that version notoriously awful!
That was 82!? And yeah, not great. Seemed awesome at the time though, being able to play on your own TV, without paying quarter!
Home console in 1980:
That’s a good choice! Probably the most popular one of that year. I never had a 2600 and started with a 5200, so my knowledge of it is lacking.
Even as a millennial this is one of the first games I played (and I still love it). I dumped the ROM so I can play it forever.
this is just a millenial version of a boomer meme. you guys are really shaping up to become what you hated. complaining about kids these days not enjoying the same shit you did when you were a kid. what next, you gonna complain about how gen alpha are destroying the economy because they’re not buying avocados or something?
stop the inter-generational fighting, honestly, it’s cringe and a huge distraction from the fact that the rich fucks in charge are looting us for all we’re worth. let’s fight them, instead of eachother
you guys are really shaping up to become what you hated.
Don’t tell me what I hated.
I took it as a complaint against the industry not against the players.
How did you take this personally? I saw it as a criticism of the industry
Hey dingus, it’s not complaining about you, it’s about being sad for you that you’ll never experience that level of innovation since companies are all “minecraft fortnite skyrim again” and nothing else.
Problem with your generation is that you get offended by anything. You just proved that point. This meme was just to understand the massive graphical improvement that has been going on through the years.
How are you so triggered by this? Holy fuck chill
Zoomers will do this in 40 years too. Same as it ever was.
complaining about kids these days not enjoying the same shit you did when you were a kid
I have 0 idea how you could have read that from the image. It’s about the seemingly exponential improvement in graphics or just how fast things were changing in gaming.
lol chill
stop the inter-generational fighting, honestly, it’s cringe and a huge distraction from the fact that the rich fucks in charge are looting us for all we’re worth
Bro, take a deep breath, that is just a meme. People can be nostalgic sometimes, there is nothing wrong with that.
except its not just nostalgia, is it? over 50% of this meme is dedicated to dumb culture war shit.
No it’s comparing the acceleration in graphics between the two time periods. If anything the bottom quote is more showing pity to the younger generation for missing out on the rapid advancement, not somehow calling them stupid for missing it.
it’s not, at all. if it was comparing graphics between two periods why are all three of the bottom screenshots fortnite? why not compare red dead redemption 2, the last of us, and mario kart wii, or something?
or why not show world of warcraft for the top 3?
clearly it’s implying that zoomers only play fortnite or that games haven’t improved in 10 years, and that’s all a bunch of bullshit. baldur’s gate 3 was the first game ever to win all of the major awards.
This is how I took it as a millennial. Hit me in the feels too.
you guys are really shaping up to become what you hated.
stop the inter-generational fighting, honestly, it’s cringe
Yeah I agree on the cringe part
Maybe graphical advancements have slowed down (especially since it takes half a decade to make a game now) but this feels a little disingenuous. Bottom is supposed to be Fortnite? I can see someone playing WoW or Quake or UT for 10 years since its release too.
Theres more variety in gaming today then there ever was, many more single dev games succeeding because they dont need to impress the likes of EA to publish their game thanks to the internet and free distribution. More platforms to choose from and multiplatform releases are more common.
The successes of one game are not reflective whole medium or the current state of gaming.
You can still find Unreal Tournament servers now. I checked it out recently because I used to play loads of UT back in the day, but everyone on there is so skilled I assume they must have been playing non stop for the past 25 years.
That’s the average “modern thing bad” to you. Especially the ones shitting on things around kids
I really hoped we millennials would remember getting shit on constantly and maybe not do it.
It’s also really ignoring how much Fortnite has changed over the years. It’s like saying 10 years of LoL and using the same three pictures from season 1.
Everyone who doesn’t play LoL will think you’re an idiot if you play ranked, that hasn’t changed in 15 years
Ranked in LoL was too stressful to me. That and StarCraft 2 I could never enjoy ranked in. Idk why. Other games didn’t have that same effect on me. I guess just too much shit to keep track of and it stresses me out.
Zoomers played Minecraft
Millennials and Alpha play(ed) Fortnite
You could also put 10 years of RuneScape or WoW for millennials and a plethora of games that came out between 2010-2020 for Zoomers
I’m a millennial who found access to the alpha version of Minecraft on a forum circa 2011. Millennials were the forerunners of Minecraft.
Fortnite came with a build-mode PVP that was a huge turn off for me and many old-head millennials. That game was primarily for Gen Z and Gen-Alpha.
Millennials did not play Fortnite.
Not true! I installed it and played for 5 minutes once!
Yeah, I played a few times right when it came out, but put it down, didn’t feel like it was for me. I am currently 37, so pretty middle of the pack millennial. I’m sure someone born in '95 played.
My sister was born in 97, my brother in 93, and me in 90 and I always have to remind myself she isn’t, technically, a millennial.
No idea if she’s played Fortnite, though.
My wife’s current fortnite addiction would suggest otherwise
Parents playing with their kids
Runescape changed quite a bit in that 10 year span
Yeah but then osrs came along
And now there’s 2009scape!
Lol was gonna reply that, which osrs? XD
