Older gamers have a duty to educate younger fans about gaming – Reader’s Feature

Older gamers have a duty to educate younger fans about gaming – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published November 29, 2025 1:00am Share this article via whatsappShare this article via xCopy the link to this article.Link is copiedShare this article via facebook Comment now Comments There is a world beyond Fortnite (Epic Games)

With younger gamers increasingly only playing free-to-play games like Fortnite a reader argues that parents should introduce them to a wider range of options.

There has been a lot of stories lately about how people are no longer buying as many new games as they used to and most are still playing games that are five years older or more. Most of these are free-to-play games like Fortnite and Minecraft and while it’s a thing that seems to be affecting everyone (because who doesn’t want free games?) it’s most common with younger gamers.

We had that terrible story this week, that said that most children would rather have in-game currency, to speed on cosmetics, than anything physical for Christmas and that is just sad to me. I’m not looking to spoil anyone’s fun, you like what you like, but I have a very hard time believing these same kids wouldn’t enjoy proper games just as much, if only they were exposed to them more.

I’ve got nothing against Fortnite, or whatever, but only playing that game, for years and years? While knowing there’s a whole world of other, completely different, games out there as well. It seems like a literal hell to me. But maybe they don’t actually know about the other games, or if they do they’re not in a position to really come across them.

The price of triple-A games increasing to £70 is bad news for everyone, but just imagine being a young kid, or even a student, and you’re faced with that kind of price tag. Try and keep up with the yearly Call Of Duty or EA Sports FC and you’d be out of money in one go.

I think this is one of the things driving the popularity of indie games at the moment, because they’re usually relatively cheap and very imaginative (if they’re not yet another roguelike or Metroidvania). But as good as indie games are they’re not everything that video games can be, and it’s very hard to find the good ones if you don’t know what you’re looking for – which someone who plays nothing but Fortnite probably won’t.

Games take so long to make nowadays that if they have a gap or just aren’t very good for a game or two, they can easily fall out of the pop culture consciousness. Halo got announced for PlayStation 5 recently and there were genuine questions about whether younger gamers even knew what Halo is – and I feel there’s a lot of games in a similar situation to that at the moment.

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If that keeps happening, then not only will younger people never know of such games but their lack of interest and support will mean those games don’t get made anymore and then it literally will be nothing but Fortnite and free-to-play games.

We’re at a point in history now where everyone has grown up with video games. They might not have ever been interested in them, but every parent today has played a video game and knows what they are – which is not how things were a few decades ago.

We’re also at a point where phones and tablets are being used as free babysitters to keep kids quiet and it ends up being all they know in terms of playing games (or watching movies, which is also worse on a phone compared to basically every other option). But a parent can introduce them to age appropriate titles, Nintendo at first but also things like the Lego games and Ratchet & Clank, depending on what formats you own.

Most kids are going to be experiencing the same thing so they’re not going to learn about the full breadth of gaming from each other and not from anywhere else really, unless they happen to come across the right kind of YouTubers. I think it’s only right that a parent doesn’t just leave it up to chance and tries to show them everything, to see what they’ll like.

It’s not a question of trying to push your likes onto your kids, as this already happens with music and movies, where parents expose their kids to what they like, intentionally or not. But with games I think it’s a bit different, there’s far less games appropriate for a young age so you have to make the effort to seek them out – it’s not like you should be showing your six-year-old Silent Hill 2.

Personally, I think it’s just good parenting. I often find the people who are not really into music or movies, and just go along with what’s popular, never really got a grounding in either from their parents. Specifically, I remember a colleague who knew almost nothing about music, to the point where it came across as weird, and he told me that his parents never really had records or the radio on in the house.

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Parents have to give their children a head start with many things in life and I think art is part of that, and that definitely includes video games.

By reader Soldat

Kids today (Credits: Getty Images)

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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