RetroGaming

we are currently playing stardew valley and I don't think harvest moon would hit as well, but maybe that's an exception overall, they truly just enjoy hard simpler games like the classics are

Now my daughter brings her friends home to play Mario 64! Masterpieces have no expiry date!!

I have had an N-64 plugged into the back of my TV for 25 years straight. The TV has changed. My kids were raised on this shit.

Cant force the shit, same with any culturally significant thing from your childhood. Think of it in reverse: if you aren't willing to engage with their zeitgeist in good faith, how could you expect them to engage with yours?

I got a Miyoo Mini plus for mine, installed onionos and loads of games from internet archive. They love it, maybe one day I'll set up my dusty wiiU but i only have Mario kart for it. Or some kind of minipc set up.

There are plenty of games up to the PS3 era that every kid would do well to play at least once. Stuff that is objectively good, that aged well, or close enough.

The problem, as I see it, is that if they get too used to mobile games, they won't have the patience for typical console or PC games, because those, on average, aren't dopamine dispensers and won't be rewarding every second click or button press - more importantly, they should NOT nag the player with cash shops.

Also important: limit the amount of games available - this is valid both for current and retro games. The moment you have "all the games" at your disposal, several things kick in: analysis paralysis, appeal to familiarity (will only play what you already know or someone knows), seeing no value in the games^[If, when you were small, you only had a limited selection of games, which was common during the cartridge era, you would be very careful with choosing new games to ask your parents to buy, though renting was an option to see which ones were good or not. You had to make do with the little you had. When you got bored with one, you either looked through your collection and played something else, or did something else entirely; you never threw away a game (unless it really sucked) and you never got a new game on a whim. That is good.].

Others mentioned the social aspect, which is true as well and something they just can't experience nowadays anymore. Minecraft and Roblox are famous because they're easy for kids to pick and play with friends. Back in our days, we had to physically sit beside one another and play together, or pass the controller on death; we also physically lent and traded games, so the games also had value within our little social circles. While fully digital games are extremely convenient, the "scarcity" gave them a social value that they completely lack today and which I suppose boardgames now fill out (yes, you can play them online, but playing on an actual table is almost always better)

Given all the child predators on Roblox, can't blame ya

God I tried. And it told me a lot out myself.

The VAST majority of that old stuff, the stuff that I remember so fondly, was only fun because it was the best we had.

My first game was Yars Revenge. By today's standards, it's about 30 seconds of entertainment.

Even Super Mario Brothers, the pinnacle of games for years, had no save button and you have to pull off a long series of perfect play with only a couple of lives or get sent back to level 1. It was almost all single player taking turns.

Compared to even old current systems, there's just no draw there and there's no social aspects for them.

Telling my five-year-old that if they can beat Ecco the Dolphin in front of me I will take them out for ice cream, but I'm not sitting down to watch more often than once a week.

I grew up playing games with my dad. I wouldn’t change a thing. I miss it dearly.

He never went easy on me in Soul Calibur.

This is the responsible way to raise a child on video games IMO. Modern games have predatory practices like microtransactions.

The look on her face says everything to me though.

I just let my sister have access to my Steam account and it's turned out alright

As long as we all raise our kids this way, they won't be out of touch with their peers!

This one dad wrote an article about introducing his kid to retro gaming, starting with the old Atari console and progressing through newer generations every few months.

https://medium.com/message/playing-with-my-son-e5226ff0a7c3

(some of the image links are broken on the original article so here's an archive link)

Introducing kids to old games is great, but restricting them from experiencing their own generations culture, not so much