this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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Very soon there won't be a generation that can remember video games not existing.
My parents were born in the late 60s and played the very first video games like pong and space invaders in the 70s. Gaming back then was more of a novelty toy and not so widespread as it is today.
Very true. My son was playing some Atari 2600 games on our Steam Deck and finally stopped to ask me, "Did people actually have fun with these games?"
Eh, not really! They were indeed a novelty, and usually got pretty boring fairly quickly...
I mean, I did! Having literally no other options makes a big difference!
Fair. I was one of the nerds who would still rather read a book or watch Star Trek reruns.
In the near future retirement homes may still have knitting activities, but they'll also have LAN parties with Warcraft 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Rise of the Triad, Age of Empires, Quake tournaments. All of this along with classic 80s arcade games. We'll be eating in the dining hall listening to the demo sounds of Dig Dug or Ms Pacman playing softly in the background.
You’re making getting put in a home sound pretty awesome.
I had this realization about 12 years ago when visiting an elderly relative in a retirement home. There was a recreated whole 1950s diner inside the facility; the booths, black & white tile, heavy use of chrome accents and even the doo-wop music playing on repeat. It struck me that for many of the residents that recreated diner likely represented some of the best times in their life where they were care free and youthful in their primes.
It immediately hit me that I'd be in a facility like that some day (if I'm lucky enough to live that long) and that there would be an equivalent of the diner for GenX me. I realized it would be a 1980s arcade possibly with a shopping mall food court with pastel colors and a sprinkle of orange neon. However, I wouldn't be able to spend my entire time in that arcade, but I'd be playing the PC and console games of my youth too along with all the other residents that had that exact same desire for those that I would.
If my nursing home doesn't have video games and heavy metal, good luck trying to get my ass in the Handivan.
Check yourself into Mattersville
Then 15-20 years later, those same glorious halls will echo with the sound of the Halo.
The reverberated utterances of DOUBLEKILL cascading into a TRIPLEKILL, or god bless it an OVERKILL. Our geriatric eyes darting across the screen during a round of swat trying to get that beautiful bullet sway of a perfectly swiped Battle Rifle shot.
Mountain Dew coursing through our ancient and dilapidated bodies. Obliterating the covenant, split screen mayhem, the MLG generation.
Power to the fucking players baby.
KILLIONAIRE
This has been my only hope for the future
M-M-M-MONSTERKILL!
MEGA-KILL!
GOD-LIKE!
Let's sure hope the classics are preserved!
The first video games were created in the 50s, and the precursors to them (like slot machines) are decades older. We are probably pretty close to that already.
They might have existed, but few people actually played them or even knew about them then. Slot machines don't count, no video!
My grandma played a lot of Zork through the '80s, and taught me to play it in the '90s.
I imagine from her point of view arcade games got gradually more computerized.
I'm 51 and remember playing Asteroids in the arcade. The state of video games today literally blows my mind, I have a hard time processing what's going on!
I'm close to 50 and have never stopped playing them since Pac-Man in 1983. The big budget ones have gotten too bloated for their own good, though!