Looks like things haven't changed since I was that age. Kids will always be kids.


...oftentimes well into adulthood.

It's nothing new whatsoever. Kids have been trying to play GTA since the game came out. I remember classmates talking about how you could get a prostitute into your car like it was the coolest thing in the entire word.

Everybody doesn't enjoy platformers, simple as that. Not even all kids. Hell, my 4-year-old once caught me playing The Last of Us and was instantly hooked. As the terrible dad that I am, I let him play for a while and explore since there wasn't anything gory going on right then.

Anyone that has seen youtube comments would rightly assume they were indoctrinated years ago.

This is nothing new. Kids see Call of Duty the way I saw Mortal Kombat as a kid. It's deemed as cool because it's not a kid's game, even though kids are the ones who played those games the most. Luckily I was more open-minded as a kid and I didn't reject Mario in favor of Mortal Kombat. I learned to like both.

I have a big collection of ps3, Wii games, semi collection of 360 and WiiU. A family friends son (~9yo) came to visit one day, and wanted to play a game. I told him to look and pick whatever he wanted ... (I have most Mario platformers, Sonic, Kirby, etc). Know what he chose? Call of Duty 4 ... (That is the only COD I own) ... I said no because he was too young ... So he chose GTA5. I told him no, again due to his age. He went crazy and had a tantrum, finally settling for Kirby after 15.

It blew my mind. His age, I was so excited for any Disney/Mario platformer that was out.

The only thing that's changed from my childhood is the edgy games are fairly R-rated these days. Our edgy consisted of laughably stupid violence (Mortal Kombat) and gore (Abadox, Smash TV, Chiller). Mario seemed lame even in comparison to Sonic as of 4th gen, even if the core gameplay was far superior.

That's something Nintendo should have saw coming ages ago. Kids want to be "cool" like that kid 3 years older. If you have 12, 15 year kids will bully you as a "baby". So it's natural to try to act like the older ones.

It's like the older brother, kids want to act like them since the early ages. It's funny that teens would die before been caught doing something childish, while a 30 year old wouldn't care because he is mature enough to be completely sure about being adult.

Expected this to be an minecraft thread.

What you do in this case is show your age, on purpose. You mentioned that you did play Call of Duty but got over it after it's 7th entry (MW), which was released when they were 2 (guessing, what age is 4th Grade?).

Then explain that if Mario is for kids, why are they not playing it? Make sure they understand they are kids still. And explain the Mario you are playing was the one released on SNES. Make sure they are aware that they didn't exist when that came out.

Then also says, "Thanks for letting me know what you play, I'll be sure to bring that up with your parents." And bam!, no longer the cool teacher but the teacher holding them all to ransom. :)