Yeah, that was my understanding of it. One is a senior engineer/designer/whatever for like 30 years of their careers so even if a company looks for a senior position they may be looking for (and have budget for) someone with 15 years of experience rather than someone with 40 years of experience.
This has been some of my experience in the gaming industry. Or "We can hire 6 guys a quarter as qualified as you for the same amount in another country for what it costs you to break even yearly."
@@lrinfi Yes, I don't want to drop any names but some very big companies, very very very big companies, that everyone knows the name of are doing this right from the heart of silicon valley.
*Successful experienced designers. Respecting based on age is still ageism and still failure. Judge by MERIT. Evaluate things critically and objectively.
I had the pleasure of working with you, Tim. You are one of the sweetest, most creative, and smarter devs I have ever come across. I wish nothing but the best. ❤❤❤ love your channel.
The whole thing about "when you get older you won't appreciate new music/etc" feels like something people say who were never into those things to begin with, just following around with the trends of their friends and liking whatever was popular on the radio at the time, but if you have a real passion for, for example, music, you'll keep finding new music your whole life unless that passion somehow dies out.
Young people eagerly seeks a group/place that they can belong to. They even go as far as maiming themselves to "fit in." When people get older, their brain patterns start to change. I thin there's a evolutionary psychology theory about it. It goes something like young people seek a group different from their parents since a group probably has a workable survival strategy and diversification improves the genes' overall survival. When people survive long enough to get older, they embody a successful survival strategy, so their role is now to be an option for the young people to pick/learn from. In modern time, this is much less applicable since survival is so much easier but our subconscious instincts still affect most of our conscious decisions.
No, its the truth! I once found a band called Dream Theater when I was young and I got one of their albums, Octavarium. Which I liked a lot. Now twenty years later I went through my music library in order to find inspiration for new music and found the album again. It was still great! So I bought several new albums from the band. I checked online and got the three highest ranked albums. But they were all mediocre! I did not care for any of them! And I wonder. Was it that the first album that I found as a child was an anomaly and was the only good thing that band ever produced despite reviews? Or was it that I only learned to like the album because I was young and now it has been "grandfathered" in to my taste, unlike the other albums that I first heard as an adult? I'm pretty sure it must be the second option. That said I still find new music that I like all the time. Just not as easily as when I was young.
@@chuckwood3426that's only because you had too high of expectations from Dream Theater! They kinda suck imo. Jk, you do have a point. But there is a difference between your taste changing as a result of cumulative life experience and being exposed to other music, and your taste changing merely due to age. If you were still listening to all sorts of progressive metal during the time between your first listen and your rediscovery, you would, uhh, still dislike their newer stuff because it just isn't good, but it wouldn't be because of your age. I do think younger people who discover a band's less impressive work may form an irrational attachment to it though.
Ageism is very ironic because you’ll always eventually be of the category you dislike. It’s not like you could suddenly become black for example. It’s weird haha. I think it feeds back into the „I live forever“ phase Tim mentioned once.
Idk how someone can disrespect older game devs. It's hard to keep up with constantly evolving technologies and game devs who have been around for decades are able to not only keep up with it, but fully understand it, manipulate it, and be masters of it. I find that incredibly worthy of respect.
You are absolutely right about this. As an elder millennial woman I have a lot of experiences where people refused to respect my knowledge or experience, and the combo of ageism & sexism is brutal. You are right -- they are absolutely more openly critical about age often using humor but the other stuff of course exists (you weren't saying otherwise, I know, this is for the benefit of others) -- it's just more subtle and systemic. Especially if a woman also is a mother. e.g. "You can't work on guns because females don't know anything about guns"
I’m sorry you’ve experienced these issues. I was raised by a divorced mother, and I saw her subjected to sexism and ageism too. I’ve seen push back on sexism (it still exists, of course) and ageism seems just as blatant as ever.
I'm 40 and I have been told in no uncertain terms that a certain game company wants to only hire 20-somethings. It blew my mind they would say that out loud, since it is illegal. (ADEA)
On another semi-related note, I've been told for the past 5 years that I don't meet the 3+ years requirement AAA experience to interview for a AAA job, while meeting all the other requirements.
@@bricaaron3978 As a democracy, we can decide to protect certain groups (e.g., women, minorities, older people, disabled people, etc.) from institutional sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, etc. That's where my right comes from--our collective agreement to create a better society and protect the vulnerable. It's possible you disagree with that view, but since you live in a democracy, you are in the minority, and your views currently do not prevail.
Great points about ageism. Always disappointing to hear that younger developers can sometimes be dismissive of design just because of its age - as a (relatively) young person who grew up on what are now old-school cRPGs, and who's really into tabletop RPGs (including some way older than me :D ), it's obvious to me how much value there is in treating ideas from older games seriously. As an industry, video games seem to have a problem with respecting and even remembering their history, which is partly due to objective technical limitations of software, but also partly due to attitude. That's the impression I get as an outsider/consumer, anyway. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that topic! I also want to point out that there is one more "ism" that constantly flies under the radar - linguicism. It is getting better, I think, but you hear people discriminating others based on language/dialect/accent all the time, at least where I'm from. Here's hoping we wise up on that front, too :)
Exact opposite in Japan.. I remember reading about a young feller that was practically doing all the work/most of the work of this particular game but couldn’t get into a more advanced job position because of his age.
So true. One very messed up source of ageism against younger people is that they haven't learned and were never told that they have rights and can and must self-advocate. Employers make a lot of requests, for example, that sound a lot like orders, and young workers often don't know they can decline.
@@lrinfi You're not wrong (is there an echo in here?), but what I was speaking to is more about the normalization of exploitation. Older folks, especially considering survivorship bias (those who were worst exploited their whole careers are more likely to be poor and dead), are likely to be in higher positions in general than younger folks, and have had more experience of having access to things like PTO or the ability to speak up (especially men). As real wages have been more than just stagnant, but have in fact rub well beneath the pace of inflation, since the 1970s, there has been a generational difference in purchasing power, the ability to save money for emergencies, and the likelihood of having buffer money to survive for a bit between jobs, such that losing a job because you told your boss where to shove it is not the worst possible thing to happen. When you have less money and power, you lack leverage, and so you are more exploitable. In the US, labor movements go way back. They've risen and fallen over time, and been more successful in some states than in others. Location is important when considering how much power labor has, but time is still a factor. An older person moving to a "right to work [yourself into the grave]" state might be shocked to find that local labor is not unionized, because, well, back in my day... Additionally, widespread union member within a given industry affects pay and benefits even for non-union workers in that industry, so older people, coming from a time when unions were more prevalent, don't have the same experience of labor as younger people do. I do think that class consciousness is improving now, in light of the pandemic and the 2016 to 2020 presidential term and how bad things have gotten, but I have to admit I am currently not in the workforce die to disability, so I can only watch from the outside, though with great interest. I'm rooting for labor to win control over all it creates, because I do think that human nature, when not filtered through the stress of barely compensated excessive labor, as the working class experiences, or being insulated from the experience of the commons people (the insulation that rich people have from reality), is generally good, caring, helpful, creative, and responsible, and that is the kind of human nature I want to see at the helm. Anyway, big takeaway here is about the statistical differences in experience between surviving older folks and younger folks in the workforce.
Ageism is a growing trend in everything, not just games, and it goes both ways. A lot of younger people blame the older generation for creating the environment that they are currently having difficulties in (housing crisis, inflation, two party political system, etc.), as well as anger for them growing up in an era where things like student loan debt weren't a factor for them, atlast not to the extent they are now. Conversely, many older people harbor growing resentment towards younger people for things like perceived lack of work ethic, over-reliance on/addiction to tech, and a general disconnect from the world in which younger people and older people grew up in. I think part of the issue is the shear amount of ways the world has changed since the turn of the century, when the compare the differences in the environment Boomers grew up in vs. Gen Xers there were some big one to be sure, but it was nowhere near the level of difference between Gen Xers and Millennials, or even older Millennials and Zoomers (I was born in '94, and I already have a hard time relating to people born less than ten years after me). People are living longer too now, so I expect this to get worse before it gets better. I honestly think there is going to be a serious attempt to keep people above or below a certain age out of public office, and maybe even raise or cap (possibly both) the voting age in the US in a couple admins.
my first experience with ageism in the industry was when I was told I was a finalist for a design position. On my third interview (which I had assumed was a formality) the interviewer was confused why I'd shown up (on skype). He said they had decided to go with two 'junior' guys instead of the 'experienced veteran'. I knew they meant that I was too old for a game designer. I was in my early 40s.
My career took me in a slightly different direction to what I studied in. ICT Education sector has taken me from being slightly older than senior students, to having juniors respond with "Wow! You're ancient!" when I hit my mid 30s. One interesting thing I have found, now in my early 40s is that current students are no longer shocked that I also play computer games, it's now more accepted as an all-ages hobby. Lorn is fantastic, good choice.
Makes you wonder if having an education system built entirely on "your age is the most important factor for grouping" has lasting effects when you leave a group of peers all born the same year.
Witch house is an awesome genre & LORN is amazing I love both too. Audibly laughed out as I heard you say that while away from my desk, thanks for a cool vid again Tim.
You said it best Mr. Cain. People really look for an "other" to place their overt negativity and vitriol upon, but I'd argue words don't matter as much as the intention behind them.
thanks Tim, Gen Y here, just getting my feet into Game Design, and I was worried that I might be too old to get started! Also, just checked in on LORN, amazing stuff, thanks for the tip!!
LORN! Always happy to find a fellow lorn enjoyer. That music got me through some tough spots in my late teens. He did part of a soundtrack for killzone and a track in furi. Thanks for making these videos.
Yeah, it's a major issue just now especially it's absolutely wild how eager people are to find someone to hate unequivocally, but hopefully it'll end soon ageism is officially illegal in the UK, but much like ableism, people find interesting ways to work around it while still doing it
As most people here, I'm in enterprise/corporate software engineering. I feel like some weird middle area is happening. If you're old - you are wizard with legacy COBOL/Fortran systems, or you understand old IBM architecture, DB2 tables, CA GEN, etc. and are treated as a total untouchable god. If you're young, well you're fresh out of college and thrown on all the new "hype" projects, you're considered "in on it" with the upcoming tech, and expected to be part of everything, given every opportunity, and grinding away on everything. Then there's me, the 28-40 year olds. We are considered out of touch, but not out of touch enough to help out the company in a legacy way. Just out of the cusp to get put on all the bleeding edge projects, but not considered old enough to be viable on the legacy front. We are just kind of there and put on basic projects. It's extremely weird, but a few coworkers of mine noticed it at my office - new tech/new development is all done by 21 to 25 year olds. Maintaining existing services is all 25-45 year olds. And 45+ is all the COBOL/IBM people. Where does all the redundancy and lay offs happen? The 25-45 year olds. Been in the industry for 10 years and feel less respected than when I was 22.
Hi Tim, thank you so much for your videos sharing your stories. I first saw your name on the intro to Fallout 1. I was 13 or 14. Now I'm 39 and work in the games industry, and although I haven't necessarily felt something I'd call ageism, I'm very aware of it. All I can say is thanks for your excellent game design and programming. I'm a programmer and you've always been a bit of a hero for me (once I realised you were a coder!). I'm appalled someone would act like that to you or to any other person. Thank you for sharing your story.
It’s difficult to express this idea in any kind of nuanced way without diverging into concepts that aren’t immediately related to the topic, but I’ll try (and probably fail). Ageism is somewhat baked into all industries oriented around design, rather than around an art-form. Games were conceptualized and have been approached as products, rather than art pieces, since the beginning of the industry. “Game Design” is a discipline of design, and it’s oriented, like all other forms of design, around consumer and market solutions, rather than craftsmanship, developed arteur perspective, or refined technique/composition. As time passes, and veteran designers age out of the target demographic, that fact leaves it vulnerable to perceptions that could accurately be described as ageist. In the arts, experience is invariably respected in regard to technique and craftsmanship. There’s a sense in the design fields that older designers, while respected in the context of their eras and influence on current “trends,” often may not understand or be able to design solutions regarding contemporary consumers and contemporary markets. Consultation is different than direct design in that it seeks to gather insights into what could otherwise be reasonably deemed “tried and true” solutions. So, when an older designer says, “consumers/players love X,” some younger people bristle, because they have an immediate internal reaction of, “how would you know what consumers/players love when you’re not even in the ‘target demo?’” I’m not surprised to hear that someone in an independent development forum said something like this, but I feel like it’s at least less pervasive, as many independent developers do try to approach games from an art perspective, rather than product development perspective. From that perspective, there’s much less room for the idea that someone is “out of touch with the market,” because the market isn’t the primary goal. Bare in mind that I’m not saying older designers ARE out of touch with anything in particular. I’m saying that in market/consumer driven disciplines, there just does exist the idea that young-blood, with a minimum experience of five to ten years and some attachment to something popular, is the best blood for chasing a largely identical and perpetually unchanging target demographic. At least, that’s been my experience as someone who’s gone to school for both types of discipline (art and design) and worked around/within them in professional environments. That’s one of the common attitudes you encounter. (Actually, there are articles that discuss this apparently, so it’s not just my experience: www.ceros.com/inspire/originals/ageism-in-design/#:~:text=word%20for%20age.-,Does%20design%20have%20an%20ageism,The%20short%20answer%20is%20yes.) This can also work in one’s favor if the target consumer runs older. I worked in a place with a user base that ranged from 16-65 (online interactive training/simulation). Our one supervisor was always glad to hire anyone who was older to help make sure we weren’t designing/building things too outside the experience of the older users (not my words or take). Market thinking is just kind of gross in general and invariably leads to other gross byproduct thinking-manifesting as ageism, sexism, and other less-than-desirable isms, as it seeks to pigeonhole consumers into easy to manage categories. Edit: I should add that I’m also probably considered “older” within than same reasoning, being in my mid-40’s.
What is blowing my mind is that you are 6'1" :) I am 39 and have just started "seriously" pursuing game dev (something I always wanted to do, but was constantly discouraged to do growing up). Basically this means I have a ton of experience that has nothing to do with coding, art, or design but I find that those things are more aligned with my passions. The problem I am having is the things that learn and do well, as a beginner, I end up having feelings of imposter syndrome bad. Those feelings are confirmed when I am struggling to learn something else new. I don't know if it is just "me" thing, but do you have any advice or have any experience working with someone who is an older beginner. PS. Thanks for doing this. Some days its the only reason I get up in the morning.
Friend I've been a dev for 18 years and I'm still occasionally dreading the day everyone discovers that I'm not really a good dev and have somehow been bullshitting everyone all this time. It's part of the job for a lot of us.
In my experience, age more often that not, does inform taste. And when it comes down to taste arguments, older people, on average, have more power to enforce theirs because they've been working longer. They have credentials, they have actual position. They have more experience in arguing and presenting ideas too, and it's important regardless of the idea itself. So I would conclude, usually if someone in your position and someone new have two different ideas that are both valid and are mostly about taste, the newer person has more pressure on them to prove their position and they feel the situation is unfair. I mean, isn't taste a much bigger part of design and choosing features than one might think? So many ways to skin a cat.
I agree that I see more older people who have more clearly defined tastes than younger people, but that's ok and even somewhat expected. If you have ever worked with a leader who thinks all good ideas should go into a game (even if they don't fit with other features), you eventually come to prefer a leader with more clearly defined tastes.
@@CainOnGames I'd definitely agree with that. I mean I wasn't trying to argue that the position I presented was the right one, I'm just trying to understand where those people could be coming from.
@@alexanderabramov2719 I appreciated your comment, and I am trying to understand people too. Part of the reason I made this channel was so that I could tell my stories and commenters could explain to me why some of the people in the stories did the things they did.
Something I'd like to add about music. I've found with working with people of many different age groups there are two types of people. 1) People that are always out looking for and embracing new music and 2) those that like the music that they listened to in their teens. For people in the second bracket they seem to act somewhat in deniel when the hip, new, counter-cultural music is now on the classic rock station. 😂
With streaming music services that let you listen to ANY music you want, I cannot even wrap my head around the mindset of group #2. Sure, there is some music I don't like...so I don't listen to it. But there is so much good stuff out there and new good stuff being made every day...why would you deny yourself?!
@@CainOnGames My hypothesis is that group 2 develops an emotional bond with the music they listened to in their youth, that they no longer emotionally connect to as they grow older. There are only so many 1st loves, 1st breakups or, 1st summer driving around with the windows down, that one can have in one life. The second group might not appreciate music as an art form, but they enjoy that emotional connection. That sensation of being transported to another place and another time. Just my 2¢.
I'm definitely in camp number 2. My main reason is that it's really hard to find new music that enjoy as much as the (mainly) 70s and 80s music I grew up with. Finding new bands and songs that resonate with me is extremely hit or miss. Mostly miss. The mainstream musical landscape is bleak. Check out Rick Beato's breakdowns of current top hits vs those from decades past. The complexity of chords and musicianship has just fallen off a cliff. This is decline is well documented. IMO, much of what's popular now barely classifies as music. Great music still obviously does exist. Talented musicians are out there making great music, but finding them is harder than ever for me. It becomes time consuming to track down new stuff I love, but when it happens, it's a great feeling. For 3 months now I've been exhaustingly listening to Avantasia, and it was a just a fluke that I came across one of their songs. As for the emotional connection, yes that is also a factor as well. Familiar music transports you back to key moments and times of your life that something new just cannot, no matter how good it is. Sure, great new music might become a fond memory association in the future, but seeking out new music just for that is a bit too much. Why look spend the time to dig through 50 new songs where I MIGHT like one or two, when I already have thousands of songs I KNOW I love that I can hear and enjoy again? At some point the need to experience new music just for its own sake gets tiresome, and it's like "ok, enough is enough. I already have more than I need to be happy for a while."
@@i_kill_for_zardoz "This deline is well documented" So well documented that you can trace it all the way to antiquity. "Things I grew up with were awesome but things that appear as I'm older suck" is as old as language, and fortunately pretty much always wrong. Today's music has absolutely wonderful tracks, you're just looking for them.
I've watched that stand-up with Eliza, she is so much fun. Also, surprisingly I've discovered Lorn recently, and I love it as well. Talking about ageism - being 30 I was a bit concerned with it when I entered the game development "scene" professionally after being in marketing/PR for years. However, thankfully, this was never the issue and I was able to get the job I wanted with my age never being brought up in professional capacity. I work with people who are 20-25 years old. I also work with people who are 40+. I'm 35 now. Age is being mentioned but mostly when everyone is having fun and people start bringing up some memes or music or whatever from 90's, yearly 2000, and not everyone gets that. The bottom line here is that 35 is apparently not 60, but I guess that companies that were started back in 90's or are started by veterans of the industry are less likely to have issues with age. Mobile gaming is probably not as torelable.
Something I said to my mother when I had a falling out with her, Boomer is a mindset, not an actual generation at this point. Explaining that you're not a Boomer is the most Boomer thing you can do with that mindset. Having said that, a lot of these old games have a lot of ideas I see coming back now, which is super interesting. It goes to show that the early era of the gaming industry was full of experimentation and that experience is super important. Some of those older ideas that maybe didn’t work might work now, and vice-versa with ideas that've been vital to the industry for decades. I think a lot of younger people being angry comes from this feeling that they got it better and now expect us to be able bootstrap ourselves like they did, and it just doesn't work out like that, things are just slowly getting worse and it's SUPER frustrating being on the receiving end of the brunt of it. And yeah, I agree with the "othering" thing. Everyone just wants an out group to rage against, and that's a slippery slope. I just want things to get better (something something luxury gay space communism) and it's hard regardless of anything.
I think game design is the only creative category where this bizzare event occurs. I am not a game developer but I am thinking about getting into it and this channel is a great source of inspiration. I studied architecture and as a hobby I make little trinkets. The way I see it: If the creative process is individualistic , like jewellers, glass makers etc. , it will require a Mentor-apprentice relationship in which as an apprentice you know your counterpart has the greater experience and better understanding of the work. If the creative process requires teamwork to complete then its a bit different but again the person with the most experience usually has a valuable input as they have first-hand experience of what have or not have worked before. We dont need to reinvent wheel everytime or waste time and energy by working on some unrealistic goal. It would be outrageous if it was any other industry. Imagine sitting at the same table with Hayao Miyazaki and shutting down his idea because he is old. Or Telling Norman Foster that his designs suck because he is 88 year old.
Maybe it's because I still adore playing old games, and I'm not young for the industry average,I'm 37, but I'm always fascinated when I get to meet or work with people thst worked in games in the 90s, there's a ton of knowledge that the industry is slowly losing, I feel younger people in design should play "retro" games, behind clunky/archaic ux sometimes there are tons of brilliant ideas
I'm hearing "we don't value skill, only compliance". The corollary to that being, "a person who has learned a skill, and learned it well, is more difficult to control than someone who is ignorant". What a world I live in... WTFAISH?
I think it's amazing to see people come together, not despite their differences, but exactly in order to bring those together as well. Games in particular involve so many kinds of skills and perspectives, it's still kinda like the wild west after all this time, so you can truly learn something new everyday. Basically, the more variety you can bring together without breaking unity, the better. 2 people going down the same trains of thought on everything is just like having one but with more simultaneous computing power, having two different perspectives can create far more complimentary and holistic qualities.
I've definitely seen iwhat you're talking about from some of my team. Lately it's fashionable for my younger gamedev colleagues to bash the 'Boomers' as a shorthand for a catch all reason for inequalities/climate crisis/etc, and they definitely see this as justification for one of the last remaining accepted biases :( . Great video thanks for sharing - for what it's worth, I definitely feel like having a long range of age spans is huge advantage for a team since you get a wider sphere of influences that you feel nostalgia for.
especially when it comes to RPG's theres so much value in older games that are starting to get lost now a days, the 'boomer' RPG devs i'd value more in my team due to the experience they bring not only from many years of working on multiple games but also just that core understanding of deep RPG mechanics and systems that dominated RPG's in the late 90s to early 2000's, with heavy draw from table top games. this is the stuff that is almost lost or watered down today from newer devs/studios. its why i still have so much respect for teams like obsidian, larian and InExile, they still have that blend of old in thier games that make them feel more true to RPG's mainly because the studios are compromosed of older talent who bring that into the teams.
I think the, "Your career is older than me," is someone coming to grips with the concept of time as they get older. It's a bit obvious and dim of them to say aloud, but I don't think it was meant with any malice or intended as a rebuke. Sometimes people just say really dumb things. It reminds me when I was 21, and teens that I worked with called me "old." It's too laughable to take seriously, and a reminder that developing brains have a long way to go.
I don’t even think it’s dumb. It’s just an observation. I heard it the other way around as well multiple times where someone with long tenure would comment that the interns are the same age as their children.
I think it's unfair to completely dismiss kids like that, honestly. They're developing, yeah, but that doesn't mean their perspective is invalid. Ageism goes both ways, for sure. Not giving people a real chance because they're too young blows for everyone involved.
Man is it fine to be positivley ageist and say your wealth of experiences have been really good to learn about/from in your videos, love your games btw!
i love working with older people because they love sharing their knowledge and experience. the younger generation tho... ive noticed they treat their knowledge as something that needs to be protected. like if they share it with someone they will have less of it left?
When Tim talks around 3:15 about how dismissing someone because of race, gender, background, or sexuality is an area where no-one really still says "this is why I don't like working with XYZ" -- when I hear that, I can't help but think of something I got very bluntly told by people in writing groups who were older than me and had more experience across professional writing, which was that (approximately) "often, you can be either white or a man but you cannot be a white man". This was something I heard from people who were not men and people who were not white. Can't know how much subjectivity was playing out there, obviously, but of course the experience of hearing that is then going to unavoidably float around the back of the mind when thinking about workplaces in creative industries.
"This is something I heard from people who were not men and people who were not white." Gotta love it when people talk about stuff they don't know, huh?
@@JasonX909Even in the context of talking about stuff that they hear other people say about a demographic group during times where no members of that group are present? Like, there's a reason I'm emphasizing the subjectivity of all this stuff, but there *are* also *some* incorrect takeaways in terms of assumptions about why I clarified that I've heard it from people who were not white or not men.
My boss was involved in the The Dark Eye games in the 90s (is it only popular in Germany?) and I love his experience. He's constantly working way too hard and always reminding us not to work overtime.
I'm 36 and work with a 40 year old guy on a state-of-the-art product (as in there exists literally none other like it) and it's my absolute dream job because we rely much more on fundamental knowledge than anything else. We don't use frameworks because we have actual knowledge about how everything works at the most basic level. We write the most basic code possible at all times because both of us are wise enough to know "cool" code is usually worse and that "Clean Code(tm)" is nonsense. Most of these things are spun as "old guy opinions" in most contexts despite being obviously good for both product quality and speed of development with the right knowledge. I've worked with people from all age groups at this point except 50+ and can say confidently that it's incredibly hard to find colleagues that I want to work with at the lower ranges, because all of the above is stuff that I either have to force as a lead or face lots of pushback and stress because of.
The best settings is like anything in life: A balance of different ages, views and experiences. Anyone who doesn't have a valid argument; well I guess the conversation ends there and work continues :)
Currently doing my Computer Science masters degree so it's nice hearing about different parts of the industry to know what environments seem interesting to me and so any problems in those industries.
"Boomer" is just gen Z slang for "old fart". It's lost all connection to "baby boomer", and refers to anyone older including millennial and gen X. It does originate from misunderstanding the "boomers vs millenials" drama that magazine media pushed, and this hate on baby boomers by the media goes back as far as the 70es. Gen Z just eagerly stepped into the "youth kept down by spoiled old folks" role, despite it being no longer possible as BBers are now their great-grandparents. You could consider it karmic punishment: after Gen X and millenials vs BBers and blaming them for being born in a luckier time, now THEY are the ones treated the same way. Turns out new gens don't care and will always find a way to blame their parents lol.
My dad worked for a japanese car company. He said that he never saw anyone working there above 58 and like clockwork when he was that age, he was let go. Since that moment he was looking for a job and no one would hire him. It wasn't until a few years later when a contra ter was doing some work on his house that he was asked if he wanted to do some freelance work for him.
It is bizarre to me that someone at Interplay wouldn't think someone with Tabletop experience would have potentially valuable ideas to contribute (especially in the implied concept of RPG's...)
Some people at Interplay didn't play games other than video games, so to them, table top games were an unrelated field with no application. Just like card games or jigsaw puzzles. To those people, there were no lessons to be gained from those pastimes. And don't even get me started on the admin guy who said to me "Making games is no different than making shoes". I have attempted to scrub all memories of that guy from my brain.
Curious what the hiking person would think of Death Stranding I tended to think that the "you're too experienced" thing was from managers who wanted to heavily influence employees, with the idea that the younger you are the more impressionable you are or whatever. But while the tendency may shift that way as one ages it doesn't have to, and it suggests to me a very rigid management style, but I dunno. I'm older now, and I see ideas that maybe didn't get enough time that are skipped out of fad rather than it feeling genuinely outmoded (I'm thinking Star Raiders again, plenty of games do sieges but the resource/damage-and-repair/tactical thinking/point system still sings). Thankfully there are a lot more venues and a lot more ways (for independent devs especially) to publish a thing they think would still work, and we get a lot of breakthroughs that way, including a lot of revisited ideas. That reflexive dismissiveness sucks, though, because there's no argument to counter, nothing to build on I still blame cereal commercials for the ongoing generational sniping :P
9:30 oh, that's not just age, that's just getting one hell of a work-out. Especially closer to school age, people are generally closer to being fairly physically fit. Skip out on activities for years, and you'll find harder activities are like getting your body to learn to do them all over again. I've certainly got some aches after getting back into exercise again recently, hoo boy...
I would say that other forms of discrimination are becoming legal and encouraged in light of recent court rulings and legilature, but I think I take your context on in the workplace.
4:00 this might be a bit picky on off the cuff speaking, so apologies if this comes of accusitory, but i do think the idea that agism is the last remaining publicly and non-illegal bigotry is really off the mark. I think it is way more clear to characterize it as you growing up and "discovering" a problem that already existed and interacted with other bigotries. I just feel it needs to be said when trans people are getting legislated into a genocide so saying agism is filling a hole is ignoring everything else
Surround yourself with similar age, gender and race. I believe we haven't been in high trust societies since the 60's but now it's dangerous to ignore or downplay. This category of hate will seep into every aspect of life from office, homes to neighbours and is too late to stop, and now, fix. This is how I honestly feel, gut feeling, 20-30years there will be change
that's a shame. as i get older my horizons have expanded a lot, as i don't like tie my ego into what things i like/consume. i listen to way more types of music new and old, play more types of games, appreciate lots more types of stories. i would definitely choose me now over me at like 20 if i wanted a creatively valuable person for a team.
I can't speak to game dev, but in web dev it was pretty cutthroat. I started in 2013 and at the small place I worked, it was very much of a 'boy's club' attitude. There was only 1 guy who was significantly older than the rest of us (most if not all of us were in our 20s) and he was definitely excluded from the in-group that got to go to Denver for the most cushy consulting assignment. The rest of us were sent out to Ohio, Herndon VA, and other less-cool places to work on projects with more actual deliverables. I sat next to him and always enjoyed working with him and hearing about his stories of being an air tower controller but you could tell that the in-group guys would go out of their way to avoid him, or make fun of him when he wasn't around. It was very disrespectful, but because the attitude of the company was generally to 'beat the other guy before he beats you' type of deal that behavior was tolerated and sometimes even vaguely encouraged. The only reason I could think for it is almost prison-style behavior. You are trapped there, look around and start thinking about what's the most powerful faction that you could align yourself with. If there are an overwhelming majority of young people and you are young, that's something that you could use to keep yourself in the game!
That could be it, maybe it was a competitive thing. All of my experiences of ageism have been as a full-time employee or as someone seeking full-time employment. As a contractor, my experience has been reversed. People seek out my experience. Maybe contractors are not as threatening because they are not after anyone's job. BTW, my first game job was in Tyson's Corner, not too far from Herndon, in VA.
The prevailing notion that the average career span of a game developer is limited to 5-10 years is rather outdated now. The endurance of both game developers and studios has significantly increased over time. Many think that being "old" is some how equates to be "out of touch". Super unconstructive/gross way to think of someone. Its as bad as assuming a young designer doesn't have enough experience to problem solve. It is entirely possible to possess a seasoned perspective and still have a remarkable grasp of players' needs. Likewise, being "young" does not guarantee a grasp on broad appeal. They can easily have highly niche or subjective design ideas.
Hey Tim I was wondering something after you mentioned the slow (in fact) deterioration of strength/health with age. As a full-time developer, I see plenty of people in their 20s and 30s, at least in my immediate environment, taking steps to take care of their health, given the job's sedentary character. I also see a lot of gamedev media people advocating for taking care of both your physical and mental health with regards to the detrimental effects of the job. So here's the two questions I have for you: 1. Would you say this health-conscious attitude among developers goes back to the earlier days of the industry in the 80s and 90s or is it a newer phenomenon? There's probably some overlapping experience with other, older sedentary industries. I also realize that the way we think about our bodies' health with regards to sitting/movement has changed a lot in the past 40 years 2. Would you say you took steps in your 20s and 30s to ensure quality health in the future, given the fact that gamedev is a lot of sitting work? I mean things like taking care of your posture, back health, movement to ensure good motorics. This isn't a question about "fitness"/dieting/whatever else people often sidetrack into. Im asking this question as I want to know if I should filter your experience of "Hey its actually quite gradual, you dont wake up one day with your back hurting all over" through the lens of some steps taken by you earlier in your life to ensure continued good health
This is really odd to me. I know plenty of indie devs that purposefully go back and play archived old games to find new features from unsuccessful video games all the time (me included), it’s bizarre that someone would criticize a feature exclusively because the person mentioning it is old.
This is one of those things I wonder about when a quality-of-life feature is missing that makes me think, "How on earth did you miss this?", or when a young designer boasts about inventing something new and I think, "no, it's been done before - it's in this game that was made before you were born." It's hard to imagine a fix for it because I don't believe it's just ageism; it's people not looking far back enough in history, and that issue is as old as time itself.
i wonder how it looks honestly i always approach older people as same people as me i do wanna show enough respect to make my grand pops proud but i also see them as same person as me unless they prove to have very outdated takes i m trying to treat them as any other person, i dont see old features as bad unless they are bad hope it makes some sense
Tim, you are still young inside. I can't say for sure, but from your stories i've got an impression that you are still able to feel excitement and marvel, and live interest. In my opinion, these three are the defining quialities of youth. You only get old when you get tired of everything and stop engaging with new culture, in my opinion.
i think there's ageism in the game industry because there's such a clear divide between Senior and Junior programmers. As much as i buy that older game developers ideas get rejected, I also think there's a lot of "reverse" ageism where younger developers ideas get rejected because they don't have the same experience. Even though some ideas might just be a good idea regardless of experience or age.
I have seen that reverse ageism too, and it's just as bad. And I get that after a while younger developers would get angry at their ideas being rejected. That's why I care more about the REASONS an idea is being rejected. There is a huge gulf between "we tried that idea before and it led to these problems" and "no way, zoomer". It all goes back to the need to give constructive criticism.
@@CainOnGamesIf you haven’t done a video on constructive criticism, consider doing one, Tim. One of things I learned as an art student in college was that. It wasn’t just about saying that something was bad, but what was good, what needed improvement, and new areas to consider exploring. Just watching the instructor critique a project and paying attention was instructive. “Oh wow, lots of reinforcement on what worked, and areas to improve! Great!” “Wonderfully executed but missed all these parameters of the assignment,” oops, professional death if you don’t pay attention - good to learn in college and not the real world. And good training for life in general.
@@lrinfi "How many times have college graduates been turned down for a job because they needed not only their graduate or post-graduate degrees but also twenty years or so of experience?" Back in the day, someone like this could have had the interviewer say, Okay, you don't have the experience, but we'll hire you and see how you do and give you a chance. Oddly enough, this also happens in the blue-collar world. A plumber or electrician in a journeyman position will be turned down for a job because they don't have the experience. Um, so how are they supposed to do that-go work somewhere for free? If you give someone a chance and are a good employer, you will have a dedicated employee.
Time to rename the channel to "Fallout Daddy" with that shirt lol. On a more serious note, I would be honored to work with someone with such experience, I dont understand why some youngsters have such a backwards outlook.
I agree ageism is socially acceptable but to say that other problems certainly haven't gone away. All around the world people's rights are being attacked every day. I don't really like bringing up "politics" on a gaming video but so much is being taken away in so many places it feels worth mentioning.
I see the Bard's Tale construction set! Man I loved that game. 53 genx here ! I remember being annoyed by old people when I was young too. I don't think I would ever said anything though.
I'm 38, work in a factory and everything hurts. I have met older people that are awesome and younger people that are awesome and people my age that are awesome. But, I'm commenting because I got my yearly review a couple days and the best comment I received was how I give constructive criticism.
I think that a lot of this has to do with the logical disconnect between modernity and tradition. You see it a lot nowadays, but it seems as though the idea of tradition itself feels unwelcome. What a lot of people fail to realize is that: in order to innovate, they require a solid foundation to innovate upon. This is my sociological extrapolation, though.
I find it rather frustrating, on one hand we have older people poopooing "Kids these days and their technology" and on the other hand we have younger people going around thinking that everyone older than them is a tech-illiterate dinosaur, but it was engineers in older generations that built the technology we're all currently using.
We covered ageism quite a bit during my psych degree, and people do not realize how poorly older folks are often treated - by employers, healthcare workers, by family, coworkers, etc A lot of older people feel increasingly invisible, dismissed, infantalized as they age. It really makes me sad.
I have noticed a few of my fellow genx friends dissing modern music. Reminds me of our parents turning their nose up at U2 and the like. As you say, there is great music being made all the time. I'm a big fan of 21 Pilots and Jacklen Ro to name two bands, and there are others.
Zoomers have the drive and energy to put themselves completely into a game. Greybeards have the xp to pass wisdom checks. Its the people in the middle I can really see being looked over.
Zoomers have terrible taste in games though, they play nonsense like the backrooms or fortnite. Watch a zoomer struggle to get through the temple of trials in fallout 2 because their goldfish brain can't handle games like that.
@@hisscivilization lol they are the laziest and dumbest generation. I have seen zoomers complain and refuse to play a game because it doesn't have full voice acting, because reading text is too hard for them.
maybe it's more because I grew up with a lot of aunts and uncles and had an opportunity to hang out at my parents' office as a kid, I'd actually much rather work with older folks
The ability diminishing ability to appreciate new things phenomenon is apparently correlated to a neurological function called "neuroplasticity." Basically, young people's brains are literally more flexible to change because their brains are still developing. So your continued ability to appreciate newer media might* indicate that you have an inherently more open mind than other people in your age! 🥳 *This word is doing a bit of work here, correlation doesn't mean causation, and the brain is one part of the human body that is still a mystery, etc, etc.
Honestly I think games would be significantly better today if they listened to the people who made games during you era, as those games are by far my favorite and from a design perspective(and i say this knowing it sounds extreme) is probably the best humanity has ever made if you really think about it. A lot of games from your era of game making(including the ones you made) are complex, but intuitive, can be enjoyed and played in many different ways by many different people without appealing to the lowest common denominator.
I'm Gen-X too and I've heard our demographic referred to as the "forgotten" generation. Which seems to be the case even in culture wars, we get lumped in with Boomers or overlooked entirely.
"You have more experience than we're looking for" We can't afford you.
Yeah, that was my understanding of it. One is a senior engineer/designer/whatever for like 30 years of their careers so even if a company looks for a senior position they may be looking for (and have budget for) someone with 15 years of experience rather than someone with 40 years of experience.
This has been some of my experience in the gaming industry. Or "We can hire 6 guys a quarter as qualified as you for the same amount in another country for what it costs you to break even yearly."
@@lrinfi Yes, I don't want to drop any names but some very big companies, very very very big companies, that everyone knows the name of are doing this right from the heart of silicon valley.
@@lrinfieverything has been outsourced for a long time. Even animation from some iconic 80s and 90s properties was outsourced to asia at the time.
Meaning they can't screw them over as easily as they could with young hopefuls.
It's crazy to hear this. Older designers should be respected because they have such veteran experience, not mocked for it.
then they go and grow a big head about it.
@@renaigh Rather an old developer with decades of experience have a big head than a young one who has next to none.
@@renaighYour entire comment history on this channel is a carnival, lmao
@DKarkarov Rather nobody gets a big head. Legacy can be acknowledged without ego.
*Successful experienced designers.
Respecting based on age is still ageism and still failure.
Judge by MERIT. Evaluate things critically and objectively.
I had the pleasure of working with you, Tim. You are one of the sweetest, most creative, and smarter devs I have ever come across. I wish nothing but the best. ❤❤❤ love your channel.
Aw...thank you Archye!
always one on these vids
The whole thing about "when you get older you won't appreciate new music/etc" feels like something people say who were never into those things to begin with, just following around with the trends of their friends and liking whatever was popular on the radio at the time, but if you have a real passion for, for example, music, you'll keep finding new music your whole life unless that passion somehow dies out.
Young people eagerly seeks a group/place that they can belong to. They even go as far as maiming themselves to "fit in." When people get older, their brain patterns start to change. I thin there's a evolutionary psychology theory about it.
It goes something like young people seek a group different from their parents since a group probably has a workable survival strategy and diversification improves the genes' overall survival. When people survive long enough to get older, they embody a successful survival strategy, so their role is now to be an option for the young people to pick/learn from.
In modern time, this is much less applicable since survival is so much easier but our subconscious instincts still affect most of our conscious decisions.
No, its the truth! I once found a band called Dream Theater when I was young and I got one of their albums, Octavarium. Which I liked a lot. Now twenty years later I went through my music library in order to find inspiration for new music and found the album again. It was still great! So I bought several new albums from the band. I checked online and got the three highest ranked albums.
But they were all mediocre! I did not care for any of them! And I wonder. Was it that the first album that I found as a child was an anomaly and was the only good thing that band ever produced despite reviews? Or was it that I only learned to like the album because I was young and now it has been "grandfathered" in to my taste, unlike the other albums that I first heard as an adult?
I'm pretty sure it must be the second option.
That said I still find new music that I like all the time. Just not as easily as when I was young.
@@chuckwood3426that's only because you had too high of expectations from Dream Theater! They kinda suck imo. Jk, you do have a point. But there is a difference between your taste changing as a result of cumulative life experience and being exposed to other music, and your taste changing merely due to age. If you were still listening to all sorts of progressive metal during the time between your first listen and your rediscovery, you would, uhh, still dislike their newer stuff because it just isn't good, but it wouldn't be because of your age. I do think younger people who discover a band's less impressive work may form an irrational attachment to it though.
The irony is all these "young" devs will be older one day and face the exact same ageism issues older devs face in the job market.
Ageism is very ironic because you’ll always eventually be of the category you dislike. It’s not like you could suddenly become black for example. It’s weird haha. I think it feeds back into the „I live forever“ phase Tim mentioned once.
Idk how someone can disrespect older game devs. It's hard to keep up with constantly evolving technologies and game devs who have been around for decades are able to not only keep up with it, but fully understand it, manipulate it, and be masters of it. I find that incredibly worthy of respect.
Almost every single one of my favourite games was made entirely by what would be considered "old people" today.
You are absolutely right about this. As an elder millennial woman I have a lot of experiences where people refused to respect my knowledge or experience, and the combo of ageism & sexism is brutal. You are right -- they are absolutely more openly critical about age often using humor but the other stuff of course exists (you weren't saying otherwise, I know, this is for the benefit of others) -- it's just more subtle and systemic. Especially if a woman also is a mother. e.g. "You can't work on guns because females don't know anything about guns"
I’m sorry you’ve experienced these issues. I was raised by a divorced mother, and I saw her subjected to sexism and ageism too. I’ve seen push back on sexism (it still exists, of course) and ageism seems just as blatant as ever.
I'm 40 and I have been told in no uncertain terms that a certain game company wants to only hire 20-somethings. It blew my mind they would say that out loud, since it is illegal. (ADEA)
On another semi-related note, I've been told for the past 5 years that I don't meet the 3+ years requirement AAA experience to interview for a AAA job, while meeting all the other requirements.
What right do I have to tell you who you can or can not hire with your own money, and work side by side with day in and day out?
@@occupationalhazard You won't answer my question, then?
@@bricaaron3978 How can I? I need more information about you to let me know what rights you have.
@@bricaaron3978 As a democracy, we can decide to protect certain groups (e.g., women, minorities, older people, disabled people, etc.) from institutional sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, etc.
That's where my right comes from--our collective agreement to create a better society and protect the vulnerable. It's possible you disagree with that view, but since you live in a democracy, you are in the minority, and your views currently do not prevail.
Great points about ageism. Always disappointing to hear that younger developers can sometimes be dismissive of design just because of its age - as a (relatively) young person who grew up on what are now old-school cRPGs, and who's really into tabletop RPGs (including some way older than me :D ), it's obvious to me how much value there is in treating ideas from older games seriously.
As an industry, video games seem to have a problem with respecting and even remembering their history, which is partly due to objective technical limitations of software, but also partly due to attitude. That's the impression I get as an outsider/consumer, anyway. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that topic!
I also want to point out that there is one more "ism" that constantly flies under the radar - linguicism. It is getting better, I think, but you hear people discriminating others based on language/dialect/accent all the time, at least where I'm from. Here's hoping we wise up on that front, too :)
Exact opposite in Japan.. I remember reading about a young feller that was practically doing all the work/most of the work of this particular game but couldn’t get into a more advanced job position because of his age.
That's not right either. Saying "your contribution is rejected because you're young" is just as bad as "yours is rejected because you're old".
So true. One very messed up source of ageism against younger people is that they haven't learned and were never told that they have rights and can and must self-advocate. Employers make a lot of requests, for example, that sound a lot like orders, and young workers often don't know they can decline.
... and, you know, that might just be one reason they don't like hiring older folks. They might expect to get paid, and we can't have that!
@@lrinfi You're not wrong (is there an echo in here?), but what I was speaking to is more about the normalization of exploitation. Older folks, especially considering survivorship bias (those who were worst exploited their whole careers are more likely to be poor and dead), are likely to be in higher positions in general than younger folks, and have had more experience of having access to things like PTO or the ability to speak up (especially men). As real wages have been more than just stagnant, but have in fact rub well beneath the pace of inflation, since the 1970s, there has been a generational difference in purchasing power, the ability to save money for emergencies, and the likelihood of having buffer money to survive for a bit between jobs, such that losing a job because you told your boss where to shove it is not the worst possible thing to happen. When you have less money and power, you lack leverage, and so you are more exploitable.
In the US, labor movements go way back. They've risen and fallen over time, and been more successful in some states than in others. Location is important when considering how much power labor has, but time is still a factor. An older person moving to a "right to work [yourself into the grave]" state might be shocked to find that local labor is not unionized, because, well, back in my day... Additionally, widespread union member within a given industry affects pay and benefits even for non-union workers in that industry, so older people, coming from a time when unions were more prevalent, don't have the same experience of labor as younger people do.
I do think that class consciousness is improving now, in light of the pandemic and the 2016 to 2020 presidential term and how bad things have gotten, but I have to admit I am currently not in the workforce die to disability, so I can only watch from the outside, though with great interest. I'm rooting for labor to win control over all it creates, because I do think that human nature, when not filtered through the stress of barely compensated excessive labor, as the working class experiences, or being insulated from the experience of the commons people (the insulation that rich people have from reality), is generally good, caring, helpful, creative, and responsible, and that is the kind of human nature I want to see at the helm.
Anyway, big takeaway here is about the statistical differences in experience between surviving older folks and younger folks in the workforce.
Ageism is a growing trend in everything, not just games, and it goes both ways.
A lot of younger people blame the older generation for creating the environment that they are currently having difficulties in (housing crisis, inflation, two party political system, etc.), as well as anger for them growing up in an era where things like student loan debt weren't a factor for them, atlast not to the extent they are now.
Conversely, many older people harbor growing resentment towards younger people for things like perceived lack of work ethic, over-reliance on/addiction to tech, and a general disconnect from the world in which younger people and older people grew up in.
I think part of the issue is the shear amount of ways the world has changed since the turn of the century, when the compare the differences in the environment Boomers grew up in vs. Gen Xers there were some big one to be sure, but it was nowhere near the level of difference between Gen Xers and Millennials, or even older Millennials and Zoomers (I was born in '94, and I already have a hard time relating to people born less than ten years after me).
People are living longer too now, so I expect this to get worse before it gets better. I honestly think there is going to be a serious attempt to keep people above or below a certain age out of public office, and maybe even raise or cap (possibly both) the voting age in the US in a couple admins.
it's not just gaming industry, but most of the software industry, specially startup related scene
my first experience with ageism in the industry was when I was told I was a finalist for a design position. On my third interview (which I had assumed was a formality) the interviewer was confused why I'd shown up (on skype). He said they had decided to go with two 'junior' guys instead of the 'experienced veteran'. I knew they meant that I was too old for a game designer. I was in my early 40s.
My career took me in a slightly different direction to what I studied in. ICT Education sector has taken me from being slightly older than senior students, to having juniors respond with "Wow! You're ancient!" when I hit my mid 30s. One interesting thing I have found, now in my early 40s is that current students are no longer shocked that I also play computer games, it's now more accepted as an all-ages hobby.
Lorn is fantastic, good choice.
Great video Tim. Thanks for bringing this topic to the fore. ‘Argument of last resort’ is a great way to frame it.
Makes you wonder if having an education system built entirely on "your age is the most important factor for grouping" has lasting effects when you leave a group of peers all born the same year.
Witch house is an awesome genre & LORN is amazing I love both too. Audibly laughed out as I heard you say that while away from my desk, thanks for a cool vid again Tim.
You said it best Mr. Cain. People really look for an "other" to place their overt negativity and vitriol upon, but I'd argue words don't matter as much as the intention behind them.
thanks Tim, Gen Y here, just getting my feet into Game Design, and I was worried that I might be too old to get started! Also, just checked in on LORN, amazing stuff, thanks for the tip!!
LORN! Always happy to find a fellow lorn enjoyer. That music got me through some tough spots in my late teens. He did part of a soundtrack for killzone and a track in furi. Thanks for making these videos.
Very valuable videos, I'm learning a lot. Keep on going! (and thanks for Fallout and Arcanum!)
Yeah, it's a major issue just now especially
it's absolutely wild how eager people are to find someone to hate unequivocally, but hopefully it'll end soon
ageism is officially illegal in the UK, but much like ableism, people find interesting ways to work around it while still doing it
As most people here, I'm in enterprise/corporate software engineering. I feel like some weird middle area is happening. If you're old - you are wizard with legacy COBOL/Fortran systems, or you understand old IBM architecture, DB2 tables, CA GEN, etc. and are treated as a total untouchable god. If you're young, well you're fresh out of college and thrown on all the new "hype" projects, you're considered "in on it" with the upcoming tech, and expected to be part of everything, given every opportunity, and grinding away on everything. Then there's me, the 28-40 year olds. We are considered out of touch, but not out of touch enough to help out the company in a legacy way. Just out of the cusp to get put on all the bleeding edge projects, but not considered old enough to be viable on the legacy front. We are just kind of there and put on basic projects. It's extremely weird, but a few coworkers of mine noticed it at my office - new tech/new development is all done by 21 to 25 year olds. Maintaining existing services is all 25-45 year olds. And 45+ is all the COBOL/IBM people. Where does all the redundancy and lay offs happen? The 25-45 year olds. Been in the industry for 10 years and feel less respected than when I was 22.
Hi Tim, thank you so much for your videos sharing your stories.
I first saw your name on the intro to Fallout 1. I was 13 or 14. Now I'm 39 and work in the games industry, and although I haven't necessarily felt something I'd call ageism, I'm very aware of it.
All I can say is thanks for your excellent game design and programming. I'm a programmer and you've always been a bit of a hero for me (once I realised you were a coder!).
I'm appalled someone would act like that to you or to any other person. Thank you for sharing your story.
It’s difficult to express this idea in any kind of nuanced way without diverging into concepts that aren’t immediately related to the topic, but I’ll try (and probably fail).
Ageism is somewhat baked into all industries oriented around design, rather than around an art-form. Games were conceptualized and have been approached as products, rather than art pieces, since the beginning of the industry.
“Game Design” is a discipline of design, and it’s oriented, like all other forms of design, around consumer and market solutions, rather than craftsmanship, developed arteur perspective, or refined technique/composition. As time passes, and veteran designers age out of the target demographic, that fact leaves it vulnerable to perceptions that could accurately be described as ageist.
In the arts, experience is invariably respected in regard to technique and craftsmanship.
There’s a sense in the design fields that older designers, while respected in the context of their eras and influence on current “trends,” often may not understand or be able to design solutions regarding contemporary consumers and contemporary markets.
Consultation is different than direct design in that it seeks to gather insights into what could otherwise be reasonably deemed “tried and true” solutions.
So, when an older designer says, “consumers/players love X,” some younger people bristle, because they have an immediate internal reaction of, “how would you know what consumers/players love when you’re not even in the ‘target demo?’”
I’m not surprised to hear that someone in an independent development forum said something like this, but I feel like it’s at least less pervasive, as many independent developers do try to approach games from an art perspective, rather than product development perspective. From that perspective, there’s much less room for the idea that someone is “out of touch with the market,” because the market isn’t the primary goal.
Bare in mind that I’m not saying older designers ARE out of touch with anything in particular. I’m saying that in market/consumer driven disciplines, there just does exist the idea that young-blood, with a minimum experience of five to ten years and some attachment to something popular, is the best blood for chasing a largely identical and perpetually unchanging target demographic.
At least, that’s been my experience as someone who’s gone to school for both types of discipline (art and design) and worked around/within them in professional environments. That’s one of the common attitudes you encounter. (Actually, there are articles that discuss this apparently, so it’s not just my experience: www.ceros.com/inspire/originals/ageism-in-design/#:~:text=word%20for%20age.-,Does%20design%20have%20an%20ageism,The%20short%20answer%20is%20yes.)
This can also work in one’s favor if the target consumer runs older. I worked in a place with a user base that ranged from 16-65 (online interactive training/simulation). Our one supervisor was always glad to hire anyone who was older to help make sure we weren’t designing/building things too outside the experience of the older users (not my words or take).
Market thinking is just kind of gross in general and invariably leads to other gross byproduct thinking-manifesting as ageism, sexism, and other less-than-desirable isms, as it seeks to pigeonhole consumers into easy to manage categories.
Edit: I should add that I’m also probably considered “older” within than same reasoning, being in my mid-40’s.
What is blowing my mind is that you are 6'1" :)
I am 39 and have just started "seriously" pursuing game dev (something I always wanted to do, but was constantly discouraged to do growing up). Basically this means I have a ton of experience that has nothing to do with coding, art, or design but I find that those things are more aligned with my passions.
The problem I am having is the things that learn and do well, as a beginner, I end up having feelings of imposter syndrome bad. Those feelings are confirmed when I am struggling to learn something else new. I don't know if it is just "me" thing, but do you have any advice or have any experience working with someone who is an older beginner.
PS. Thanks for doing this. Some days its the only reason I get up in the morning.
You’re welcome. And keep at it! I’ve had imposter syndrome too. I’ll talk about that a little tomorrow.
@@CainOnGames Good.
I'm the same age as you are pursuing the same things. I'm finding it very enriching to learn new skills related to my interests.
Friend I've been a dev for 18 years and I'm still occasionally dreading the day everyone discovers that I'm not really a good dev and have somehow been bullshitting everyone all this time. It's part of the job for a lot of us.
Reminds me of how I failed an interview at one company. Got hired at a different company, and was assigned as a consultant to the first one.
In my experience, age more often that not, does inform taste. And when it comes down to taste arguments, older people, on average, have more power to enforce theirs because they've been working longer. They have credentials, they have actual position. They have more experience in arguing and presenting ideas too, and it's important regardless of the idea itself.
So I would conclude, usually if someone in your position and someone new have two different ideas that are both valid and are mostly about taste, the newer person has more pressure on them to prove their position and they feel the situation is unfair.
I mean, isn't taste a much bigger part of design and choosing features than one might think? So many ways to skin a cat.
I agree that I see more older people who have more clearly defined tastes than younger people, but that's ok and even somewhat expected. If you have ever worked with a leader who thinks all good ideas should go into a game (even if they don't fit with other features), you eventually come to prefer a leader with more clearly defined tastes.
@@CainOnGames I'd definitely agree with that. I mean I wasn't trying to argue that the position I presented was the right one, I'm just trying to understand where those people could be coming from.
@@alexanderabramov2719 I appreciated your comment, and I am trying to understand people too. Part of the reason I made this channel was so that I could tell my stories and commenters could explain to me why some of the people in the stories did the things they did.
Something I'd like to add about music. I've found with working with people of many different age groups there are two types of people. 1) People that are always out looking for and embracing new music and 2) those that like the music that they listened to in their teens. For people in the second bracket they seem to act somewhat in deniel when the hip, new, counter-cultural music is now on the classic rock station. 😂
With streaming music services that let you listen to ANY music you want, I cannot even wrap my head around the mindset of group #2. Sure, there is some music I don't like...so I don't listen to it. But there is so much good stuff out there and new good stuff being made every day...why would you deny yourself?!
@@CainOnGames My hypothesis is that group 2 develops an emotional bond with the music they listened to in their youth, that they no longer emotionally connect to as they grow older. There are only so many 1st loves, 1st breakups or, 1st summer driving around with the windows down, that one can have in one life.
The second group might not appreciate music as an art form, but they enjoy that emotional connection. That sensation of being transported to another place and another time. Just my 2¢.
@@CainOnGames I really think that the ability to discover and enjoy new things rather being stuck in place is a muscle. You have to practice it.
I'm definitely in camp number 2. My main reason is that it's really hard to find new music that enjoy as much as the (mainly) 70s and 80s music I grew up with. Finding new bands and songs that resonate with me is extremely hit or miss. Mostly miss. The mainstream musical landscape is bleak. Check out Rick Beato's breakdowns of current top hits vs those from decades past. The complexity of chords and musicianship has just fallen off a cliff. This is decline is well documented. IMO, much of what's popular now barely classifies as music.
Great music still obviously does exist. Talented musicians are out there making great music, but finding them is harder than ever for me. It becomes time consuming to track down new stuff I love, but when it happens, it's a great feeling. For 3 months now I've been exhaustingly listening to Avantasia, and it was a just a fluke that I came across one of their songs.
As for the emotional connection, yes that is also a factor as well. Familiar music transports you back to key moments and times of your life that something new just cannot, no matter how good it is. Sure, great new music might become a fond memory association in the future, but seeking out new music just for that is a bit too much. Why look spend the time to dig through 50 new songs where I MIGHT like one or two, when I already have thousands of songs I KNOW I love that I can hear and enjoy again? At some point the need to experience new music just for its own sake gets tiresome, and it's like "ok, enough is enough. I already have more than I need to be happy for a while."
@@i_kill_for_zardoz "This deline is well documented" So well documented that you can trace it all the way to antiquity. "Things I grew up with were awesome but things that appear as I'm older suck" is as old as language, and fortunately pretty much always wrong.
Today's music has absolutely wonderful tracks, you're just looking for them.
I've watched that stand-up with Eliza, she is so much fun. Also, surprisingly I've discovered Lorn recently, and I love it as well. Talking about ageism - being 30 I was a bit concerned with it when I entered the game development "scene" professionally after being in marketing/PR for years. However, thankfully, this was never the issue and I was able to get the job I wanted with my age never being brought up in professional capacity. I work with people who are 20-25 years old. I also work with people who are 40+. I'm 35 now. Age is being mentioned but mostly when everyone is having fun and people start bringing up some memes or music or whatever from 90's, yearly 2000, and not everyone gets that. The bottom line here is that 35 is apparently not 60, but I guess that companies that were started back in 90's or are started by veterans of the industry are less likely to have issues with age. Mobile gaming is probably not as torelable.
Something I said to my mother when I had a falling out with her, Boomer is a mindset, not an actual generation at this point. Explaining that you're not a Boomer is the most Boomer thing you can do with that mindset.
Having said that, a lot of these old games have a lot of ideas I see coming back now, which is super interesting. It goes to show that the early era of the gaming industry was full of experimentation and that experience is super important. Some of those older ideas that maybe didn’t work might work now, and vice-versa with ideas that've been vital to the industry for decades.
I think a lot of younger people being angry comes from this feeling that they got it better and now expect us to be able bootstrap ourselves like they did, and it just doesn't work out like that, things are just slowly getting worse and it's SUPER frustrating being on the receiving end of the brunt of it.
And yeah, I agree with the "othering" thing. Everyone just wants an out group to rage against, and that's a slippery slope. I just want things to get better (something something luxury gay space communism) and it's hard regardless of anything.
@casimirv6778 She abused me for a very long time. I hope she burns in hell.
I think game design is the only creative category where this bizzare event occurs. I am not a game developer but I am thinking about getting into it and this channel is a great source of inspiration. I studied architecture and as a hobby I make little trinkets. The way I see it: If the creative process is individualistic , like jewellers, glass makers etc. , it will require a Mentor-apprentice relationship in which as an apprentice you know your counterpart has the greater experience and better understanding of the work. If the creative process requires teamwork to complete then its a bit different but again the person with the most experience usually has a valuable input as they have first-hand experience of what have or not have worked before. We dont need to reinvent wheel everytime or waste time and energy by working on some unrealistic goal. It would be outrageous if it was any other industry. Imagine sitting at the same table with Hayao Miyazaki and shutting down his idea because he is old. Or Telling Norman Foster that his designs suck because he is 88 year old.
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
Maybe it's because I still adore playing old games, and I'm not young for the industry average,I'm 37, but I'm always fascinated when I get to meet or work with people thst worked in games in the 90s, there's a ton of knowledge that the industry is slowly losing, I feel younger people in design should play "retro" games, behind clunky/archaic ux sometimes there are tons of brilliant ideas
I'm hearing "we don't value skill, only compliance". The corollary to that being, "a person who has learned a skill, and learned it well, is more difficult to control than someone who is ignorant".
What a world I live in... WTFAISH?
I think it's amazing to see people come together, not despite their differences, but exactly in order to bring those together as well.
Games in particular involve so many kinds of skills and perspectives, it's still kinda like the wild west after all this time, so you can truly learn something new everyday.
Basically, the more variety you can bring together without breaking unity, the better. 2 people going down the same trains of thought on everything is just like having one but with more simultaneous computing power, having two different perspectives can create far more complimentary and holistic qualities.
I've definitely seen iwhat you're talking about from some of my team. Lately it's fashionable for my younger gamedev colleagues to bash the 'Boomers' as a shorthand for a catch all reason for inequalities/climate crisis/etc, and they definitely see this as justification for one of the last remaining accepted biases :( . Great video thanks for sharing - for what it's worth, I definitely feel like having a long range of age spans is huge advantage for a team since you get a wider sphere of influences that you feel nostalgia for.
especially when it comes to RPG's theres so much value in older games that are starting to get lost now a days, the 'boomer' RPG devs i'd value more in my team due to the experience they bring not only from many years of working on multiple games but also just that core understanding of deep RPG mechanics and systems that dominated RPG's in the late 90s to early 2000's, with heavy draw from table top games. this is the stuff that is almost lost or watered down today from newer devs/studios. its why i still have so much respect for teams like obsidian, larian and InExile, they still have that blend of old in thier games that make them feel more true to RPG's mainly because the studios are compromosed of older talent who bring that into the teams.
Social Media did a number on younger gens. The fear of getting old is bigger than ever before. At 20 they start talking like their life is over.
I think the, "Your career is older than me," is someone coming to grips with the concept of time as they get older. It's a bit obvious and dim of them to say aloud, but I don't think it was meant with any malice or intended as a rebuke. Sometimes people just say really dumb things. It reminds me when I was 21, and teens that I worked with called me "old." It's too laughable to take seriously, and a reminder that developing brains have a long way to go.
I don’t even think it’s dumb. It’s just an observation. I heard it the other way around as well multiple times where someone with long tenure would comment that the interns are the same age as their children.
I think it's unfair to completely dismiss kids like that, honestly. They're developing, yeah, but that doesn't mean their perspective is invalid. Ageism goes both ways, for sure. Not giving people a real chance because they're too young blows for everyone involved.
Thank you for saying the quiet thing loud!
Man is it fine to be positivley ageist and say your wealth of experiences have been really good to learn about/from in your videos, love your games btw!
i love working with older people because they love sharing their knowledge and experience. the younger generation tho... ive noticed they treat their knowledge as something that needs to be protected. like if they share it with someone they will have less of it left?
When Tim talks around 3:15 about how dismissing someone because of race, gender, background, or sexuality is an area where no-one really still says "this is why I don't like working with XYZ" -- when I hear that, I can't help but think of something I got very bluntly told by people in writing groups who were older than me and had more experience across professional writing, which was that (approximately) "often, you can be either white or a man but you cannot be a white man". This was something I heard from people who were not men and people who were not white. Can't know how much subjectivity was playing out there, obviously, but of course the experience of hearing that is then going to unavoidably float around the back of the mind when thinking about workplaces in creative industries.
"This is something I heard from people who were not men and people who were not white."
Gotta love it when people talk about stuff they don't know, huh?
@@JasonX909Even in the context of talking about stuff that they hear other people say about a demographic group during times where no members of that group are present?
Like, there's a reason I'm emphasizing the subjectivity of all this stuff, but there *are* also *some* incorrect takeaways in terms of assumptions about why I clarified that I've heard it from people who were not white or not men.
We can easily verify that this is definitely true by observing there are no successful professional writers who are white men.
My boss was involved in the The Dark Eye games in the 90s (is it only popular in Germany?) and I love his experience. He's constantly working way too hard and always reminding us not to work overtime.
P.S. Never I thought I will hear something about Lorn here from Tim Cain xD Made some AMVs with Lorn music in the 2020.
So true. It's gotten to the point to where touting my 25 years of experience hurts my chances of getting hired.
I'm 36 and work with a 40 year old guy on a state-of-the-art product (as in there exists literally none other like it) and it's my absolute dream job because we rely much more on fundamental knowledge than anything else. We don't use frameworks because we have actual knowledge about how everything works at the most basic level. We write the most basic code possible at all times because both of us are wise enough to know "cool" code is usually worse and that "Clean Code(tm)" is nonsense. Most of these things are spun as "old guy opinions" in most contexts despite being obviously good for both product quality and speed of development with the right knowledge.
I've worked with people from all age groups at this point except 50+ and can say confidently that it's incredibly hard to find colleagues that I want to work with at the lower ranges, because all of the above is stuff that I either have to force as a lead or face lots of pushback and stress because of.
The best settings is like anything in life: A balance of different ages, views and experiences.
Anyone who doesn't have a valid argument; well I guess the conversation ends there and work continues :)
Currently doing my Computer Science masters degree so it's nice hearing about different parts of the industry to know what environments seem interesting to me and so any problems in those industries.
"Boomer" is just gen Z slang for "old fart". It's lost all connection to "baby boomer", and refers to anyone older including millennial and gen X.
It does originate from misunderstanding the "boomers vs millenials" drama that magazine media pushed, and this hate on baby boomers by the media goes back as far as the 70es. Gen Z just eagerly stepped into the "youth kept down by spoiled old folks" role, despite it being no longer possible as BBers are now their great-grandparents. You could consider it karmic punishment: after Gen X and millenials vs BBers and blaming them for being born in a luckier time, now THEY are the ones treated the same way. Turns out new gens don't care and will always find a way to blame their parents lol.
Subject matter aside, these daily uploads are so cozy
My dad worked for a japanese car company. He said that he never saw anyone working there above 58 and like clockwork when he was that age, he was let go. Since that moment he was looking for a job and no one would hire him.
It wasn't until a few years later when a contra ter was doing some work on his house that he was asked if he wanted to do some freelance work for him.
Hearing Tim say "Zoomer" was something else.
When a generation is brought up mostly by narcissism and internet...we get fun stuff like this.
LORN! great taste in music Tim! its all in the mind, you are not old, you wont be old even when you hit 80..
What are your thoughts on Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2?
"Also it came out of a box in the garage so it's a little.. strange smelling" lol that made me laugh really hard for some reason
It is bizarre to me that someone at Interplay wouldn't think someone with Tabletop experience would have potentially valuable ideas to contribute (especially in the implied concept of RPG's...)
Some people at Interplay didn't play games other than video games, so to them, table top games were an unrelated field with no application. Just like card games or jigsaw puzzles. To those people, there were no lessons to be gained from those pastimes.
And don't even get me started on the admin guy who said to me "Making games is no different than making shoes". I have attempted to scrub all memories of that guy from my brain.
Curious what the hiking person would think of Death Stranding
I tended to think that the "you're too experienced" thing was from managers who wanted to heavily influence employees, with the idea that the younger you are the more impressionable you are or whatever. But while the tendency may shift that way as one ages it doesn't have to, and it suggests to me a very rigid management style, but I dunno.
I'm older now, and I see ideas that maybe didn't get enough time that are skipped out of fad rather than it feeling genuinely outmoded (I'm thinking Star Raiders again, plenty of games do sieges but the resource/damage-and-repair/tactical thinking/point system still sings). Thankfully there are a lot more venues and a lot more ways (for independent devs especially) to publish a thing they think would still work, and we get a lot of breakthroughs that way, including a lot of revisited ideas. That reflexive dismissiveness sucks, though, because there's no argument to counter, nothing to build on
I still blame cereal commercials for the ongoing generational sniping :P
9:30 oh, that's not just age, that's just getting one hell of a work-out. Especially closer to school age, people are generally closer to being fairly physically fit. Skip out on activities for years, and you'll find harder activities are like getting your body to learn to do them all over again.
I've certainly got some aches after getting back into exercise again recently, hoo boy...
I would say that other forms of discrimination are becoming legal and encouraged in light of recent court rulings and legilature, but I think I take your context on in the workplace.
Bless you for your continued sacrifice of wearing smelly garage shirts 🙏
4:00 this might be a bit picky on off the cuff speaking, so apologies if this comes of accusitory, but i do think the idea that agism is the last remaining publicly and non-illegal bigotry is really off the mark. I think it is way more clear to characterize it as you growing up and "discovering" a problem that already existed and interacted with other bigotries. I just feel it needs to be said when trans people are getting legislated into a genocide so saying agism is filling a hole is ignoring everything else
Surround yourself with similar age, gender and race. I believe we haven't been in high trust societies since the 60's but now it's dangerous to ignore or downplay. This category of hate will seep into every aspect of life from office, homes to neighbours and is too late to stop, and now, fix. This is how I honestly feel, gut feeling, 20-30years there will be change
Let's be honest, it works both ways. Don't see a lot of 18 years olds in modern big studios either.
Yup. As someone who started at a game company at 16, I’ve seen the discrimination at both ends.
Yes, but that's mostly due to lack of education and experience. I've worked with plenty of 22-year-olds who were straight out of college.
Its really cool to hear that you are into witchhouse and Lorn!
I'd love to work with someone older than me, I would be so jazzed about the possibility of learning from their...well...their experience.
Disliking the older generations is becoming increasingly common with young people all across society. It's sad.
that's a shame. as i get older my horizons have expanded a lot, as i don't like tie my ego into what things i like/consume. i listen to way more types of music new and old, play more types of games, appreciate lots more types of stories. i would definitely choose me now over me at like 20 if i wanted a creatively valuable person for a team.
I can't speak to game dev, but in web dev it was pretty cutthroat. I started in 2013 and at the small place I worked, it was very much of a 'boy's club' attitude. There was only 1 guy who was significantly older than the rest of us (most if not all of us were in our 20s) and he was definitely excluded from the in-group that got to go to Denver for the most cushy consulting assignment. The rest of us were sent out to Ohio, Herndon VA, and other less-cool places to work on projects with more actual deliverables. I sat next to him and always enjoyed working with him and hearing about his stories of being an air tower controller but you could tell that the in-group guys would go out of their way to avoid him, or make fun of him when he wasn't around. It was very disrespectful, but because the attitude of the company was generally to 'beat the other guy before he beats you' type of deal that behavior was tolerated and sometimes even vaguely encouraged. The only reason I could think for it is almost prison-style behavior. You are trapped there, look around and start thinking about what's the most powerful faction that you could align yourself with. If there are an overwhelming majority of young people and you are young, that's something that you could use to keep yourself in the game!
That could be it, maybe it was a competitive thing. All of my experiences of ageism have been as a full-time employee or as someone seeking full-time employment. As a contractor, my experience has been reversed. People seek out my experience. Maybe contractors are not as threatening because they are not after anyone's job.
BTW, my first game job was in Tyson's Corner, not too far from Herndon, in VA.
daaammmn shoutout to a fellow Lorn lover.
who wouldve thought, that you'd e the first person to mention Lorn I've ever come across
The prevailing notion that the average career span of a game developer is limited to 5-10 years is rather outdated now. The endurance of both game developers and studios has significantly increased over time. Many think that being "old" is some how equates to be "out of touch". Super unconstructive/gross way to think of someone. Its as bad as assuming a young designer doesn't have enough experience to problem solve.
It is entirely possible to possess a seasoned perspective and still have a remarkable grasp of players' needs. Likewise, being "young" does not guarantee a grasp on broad appeal. They can easily have highly niche or subjective design ideas.
Hey Tim I was wondering something after you mentioned the slow (in fact) deterioration of strength/health with age. As a full-time developer, I see plenty of people in their 20s and 30s, at least in my immediate environment, taking steps to take care of their health, given the job's sedentary character. I also see a lot of gamedev media people advocating for taking care of both your physical and mental health with regards to the detrimental effects of the job.
So here's the two questions I have for you:
1. Would you say this health-conscious attitude among developers goes back to the earlier days of the industry in the 80s and 90s or is it a newer phenomenon? There's probably some overlapping experience with other, older sedentary industries. I also realize that the way we think about our bodies' health with regards to sitting/movement has changed a lot in the past 40 years
2. Would you say you took steps in your 20s and 30s to ensure quality health in the future, given the fact that gamedev is a lot of sitting work? I mean things like taking care of your posture, back health, movement to ensure good motorics. This isn't a question about "fitness"/dieting/whatever else people often sidetrack into. Im asking this question as I want to know if I should filter your experience of "Hey its actually quite gradual, you dont wake up one day with your back hurting all over" through the lens of some steps taken by you earlier in your life to ensure continued good health
This is really odd to me. I know plenty of indie devs that purposefully go back and play archived old games to find new features from unsuccessful video games all the time (me included), it’s bizarre that someone would criticize a feature exclusively because the person mentioning it is old.
Awesome video and amazing consultant advice
This is one of those things I wonder about when a quality-of-life feature is missing that makes me think, "How on earth did you miss this?", or when a young designer boasts about inventing something new and I think, "no, it's been done before - it's in this game that was made before you were born."
It's hard to imagine a fix for it because I don't believe it's just ageism; it's people not looking far back enough in history, and that issue is as old as time itself.
*"Finesse is for the young and the cocky." (Sam Fisher)*
i wonder how it looks
honestly i always approach older people as same people as me
i do wanna show enough respect to make my grand pops proud
but i also see them as same person as me
unless they prove to have very outdated takes
i m trying to treat them as any other person, i dont see old features as bad unless they are bad
hope it makes some sense
this video is lowkey a meme but im still interested
As someone who is in his thirties and is attempting to get into this industry, this is sad to hear. But I'm not detered :)
Tim, you are still young inside. I can't say for sure, but from your stories i've got an impression that you are still able to feel excitement and marvel, and live interest. In my opinion, these three are the defining quialities of youth. You only get old when you get tired of everything and stop engaging with new culture, in my opinion.
you shouldn't infantilise older folk by pretending they're not getting on in years.
@@renaighThis is a profoundly stupid thing to say and you've completely missed the point of what they are trying to say.
i think there's ageism in the game industry because there's such a clear divide between Senior and Junior programmers. As much as i buy that older game developers ideas get rejected, I also think there's a lot of "reverse" ageism where younger developers ideas get rejected because they don't have the same experience. Even though some ideas might just be a good idea regardless of experience or age.
I have seen that reverse ageism too, and it's just as bad. And I get that after a while younger developers would get angry at their ideas being rejected. That's why I care more about the REASONS an idea is being rejected. There is a huge gulf between "we tried that idea before and it led to these problems" and "no way, zoomer". It all goes back to the need to give constructive criticism.
Ageism is ageism. It's not reverse.
@@CainOnGamesIf you haven’t done a video on constructive criticism, consider doing one, Tim. One of things I learned as an art student in college was that. It wasn’t just about saying that something was bad, but what was good, what needed improvement, and new areas to consider exploring. Just watching the instructor critique a project and paying attention was instructive. “Oh wow, lots of reinforcement on what worked, and areas to improve! Great!” “Wonderfully executed but missed all these parameters of the assignment,” oops, professional death if you don’t pay attention - good to learn in college and not the real world. And good training for life in general.
@@bruceschlickbernd8475 Bruce, try my video on Brainstorming: ua-cam.com/video/9lYuzefVvMA/v-deo.html
@@lrinfi "How many times have college graduates been turned down for a job because they needed not only their graduate or post-graduate degrees but also twenty years or so of experience?"
Back in the day, someone like this could have had the interviewer say, Okay, you don't have the experience, but we'll hire you and see how you do and give you a chance. Oddly enough, this also happens in the blue-collar world. A plumber or electrician in a journeyman position will be turned down for a job because they don't have the experience. Um, so how are they supposed to do that-go work somewhere for free? If you give someone a chance and are a good employer, you will have a dedicated employee.
Time to rename the channel to "Fallout Daddy" with that shirt lol.
On a more serious note, I would be honored to work with someone with such experience, I dont understand why some youngsters have such a backwards outlook.
I agree ageism is socially acceptable but to say that other problems certainly haven't gone away. All around the world people's rights are being attacked every day. I don't really like bringing up "politics" on a gaming video but so much is being taken away in so many places it feels worth mentioning.
I see the Bard's Tale construction set! Man I loved that game. 53 genx here ! I remember being annoyed by old people when I was young too. I don't think I would ever said anything though.
They say you are old because they cant admit they are wrong
I'm 38, work in a factory and everything hurts. I have met older people that are awesome and younger people that are awesome and people my age that are awesome.
But, I'm commenting because I got my yearly review a couple days and the best comment I received was how I give constructive criticism.
I think that a lot of this has to do with the logical disconnect between modernity and tradition. You see it a lot nowadays, but it seems as though the idea of tradition itself feels unwelcome.
What a lot of people fail to realize is that: in order to innovate, they require a solid foundation to innovate upon.
This is my sociological extrapolation, though.
I love working with veterans, best way to learn!
I find it rather frustrating, on one hand we have older people poopooing "Kids these days and their technology" and on the other hand we have younger people going around thinking that everyone older than them is a tech-illiterate dinosaur, but it was engineers in older generations that built the technology we're all currently using.
We covered ageism quite a bit during my psych degree, and people do not realize how poorly older folks are often treated - by employers, healthcare workers, by family, coworkers, etc A lot of older people feel increasingly invisible, dismissed, infantalized as they age. It really makes me sad.
I have noticed a few of my fellow genx friends dissing modern music. Reminds me of our parents turning their nose up at U2 and the like.
As you say, there is great music being made all the time. I'm a big fan of 21 Pilots and Jacklen Ro to name two bands, and there are others.
Zoomers have the drive and energy to put themselves completely into a game. Greybeards have the xp to pass wisdom checks. Its the people in the middle I can really see being looked over.
Zoomers have terrible taste in games though, they play nonsense like the backrooms or fortnite. Watch a zoomer struggle to get through the temple of trials in fallout 2 because their goldfish brain can't handle games like that.
More like, "Zoomers are desperate enough to build a career that they will accept pennies and crunching"
@@hisscivilization lol they are the laziest and dumbest generation. I have seen zoomers complain and refuse to play a game because it doesn't have full voice acting, because reading text is too hard for them.
@@wowsnav so you have better taste playing call of dookie?
maybe it's more because I grew up with a lot of aunts and uncles and had an opportunity to hang out at my parents' office as a kid, I'd actually much rather work with older folks
The ability diminishing ability to appreciate new things phenomenon is apparently correlated to a neurological function called "neuroplasticity." Basically, young people's brains are literally more flexible to change because their brains are still developing. So your continued ability to appreciate newer media might* indicate that you have an inherently more open mind than other people in your age! 🥳
*This word is doing a bit of work here, correlation doesn't mean causation, and the brain is one part of the human body that is still a mystery, etc, etc.
Honestly I think games would be significantly better today if they listened to the people who made games during you era, as those games are by far my favorite and from a design perspective(and i say this knowing it sounds extreme) is probably the best humanity has ever made if you really think about it. A lot of games from your era of game making(including the ones you made) are complex, but intuitive, can be enjoyed and played in many different ways by many different people without appealing to the lowest common denominator.
Hi Tim. Can you please share your point of view on level capacity or experience capacity in games?
I'm Gen-X too and I've heard our demographic referred to as the "forgotten" generation. Which seems to be the case even in culture wars, we get lumped in with Boomers or overlooked entirely.