We Need to Bridge the Generational Gaming Divide

The following is adapted from Demystifing Esports, by Baro Hyun.

One day I bought two Nintendo Switches as birthday presents for my two sons, who recently turned eight and six, respectively. From the moment the consoles arrived in our house, their grandmother, who supervises their daily activities, entered a state of extreme vigilance.

I’ve known Yoko for more than a decade. In most circumstances, she is an extremely peaceful person. I’ve never known her to get mad for no reason. When she sees her grandchildren playing video games, however, a red mist descends over her eyes.

One day, these tensions bubbled over, revealing to me the need to bridge the generational gaming divide.

Granny vs. Switch

Despite occasional complaints, my older son, Mir, a law-abiding citizen who is more civilized than his brother, seemed to cope with his grandmother’s “homework first” doctrine. My younger son, Haru, however, is slightly rebellious and doesn’t yet attend primary school — meaning he doesn’t have any homework.

When Haru entered gaming mode, he was not at all interested in listening to his grandmother. When she tried to intervene in the middle of his intense engagement with the Switch, he ignored her completely. Sometimes he even retorted by saying something obnoxious that he had learned from a YouTube video (“a six-year-old just said what?!”) .

His otherwise peaceful grandmother, on the other hand, couldn’t stand the sight of her grandchild giving all his attention to the tiny screen of the Switch for hours at a time, and none to her.

Over the course of a few days, stress in the house gradually built up, until the clouds broke in dramatic fashion.

My sons’ granny had a bad day. When she saw the younger one in gaming mode, she flipped out. With a speed that belied her age, she brought a pair of scissors from the kitchen and mercilessly cut the charging cable of the Switch. Without a cable to charge the machine, my younger son had no way to prolong his gaming when the battery was empty.

His grandmother was victorious yet slightly abashed. My younger son reacted with shock and horror.

How Many Adults Perceive Video Games

What does the story above tell us? I’d argue that it’s a fairly good illustration of how many people in our society perceive gaming. While many young people love to play video games, their older counterparts, especially those who haven’t had the chance to experience gaming for themselves, often respond with suspicion, or even outright hostility.

There is a stark gap between people in their thirties, forties, and younger, myself included, who have embraced video gaming as part of their culture, and older generations with little or no gaming experience, who may see video gaming as an alien phenomenon. For many of them, their interactions with video games consist solely of seeing their younger relatives apparently buried in another world, unable to socialize or pay attention to events off the screen. They naturally form a negative perception of gaming that can be hard to shake.

Esports is everywhere nowadays, so these same older people are sure to hear about it on the news. They don’t fully understand what esports is and — based on their limited interactions with video games — they think negatively about it.

It’s an entirely understandable situation, but I think it’s an extremely unfortunate one. This generation gap is felt by parents of children who love games and children whose parents don’t love games. Worse, it’s a worldwide phenomenon. I have seen many people facing the same issue in Japan — where I currently live — the United States, and Europe, where I have previously lived.

The good news is that there’s no need for esports to drive a wedge between generations when they could instead be a point of intergenerational connection.

Bridging the Gap

When communication breaks down, we all lose. If you’re a parent, you may resort to premature judgments about your child’s life and career choices, for example, believing that he is hopeless because he spends too many hours every day playing games, or that he is nuts for wanting to become a professional gamer. On the other side of the coin, if you’re a young person with an avid interest in esports, you may think your parents are clueless.

As a parent of two children who love video games, I can see the risks of excessive gaming. Yet as an esports enthusiast myself, I understand why my sons enjoy them so much.

The gaming industry isn’t perfect. It has focused too much on creating entertainment, leading to a perception of video games as a guilty pleasure. But there are numerous positive elements of video gaming.

The only way to bridge the generational gaming gap is for all of us to make a conscious effort to understand the perspectives of the important people in our life.

For more advice on bridging the generational gaming divide, you can find Demystifing Esports on Amazon.

Dr. Baro Hyun is the founder of an unprecedented esports advisory practice at a Tokyo-based Big Four consulting firm. Hyun’s experience growing up in South Korea, the birthplace of esports business, has been central to his success with the advisory business, which has a pool of major clients including the Japanese government. Dr. Hyun has been teaching esports business at Keio University since 2018, and he has frequently appeared in major media outlets like The Nikkei, the world’s largest financial newspaper. He was the editorial supervisor for the acclaimed book A Primer on Esports Business (まる わかり！eスポーツ・ビジネス) by Nikkei Mook, available in Amazon Japan.