Videogames for all audiences

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If you have small children (or brothers or take care of nephews) you will be a little fed up with children’s drawings. I ended up getting the point Little me, but Dora the explorer (and his map and his backpack) have always disliked me, the poor. Of course, when it was time to take the little one to the cinema to see a Pixar one, the one who was excited was me. The first movie that my son saw in the cinema, very small, with his booster and all, was Wall-E. He came out excited and I, with tears in my eyes. We knew each other by heart until the dialogues of Cars, but I did not mind seeing her again, because I always discovered something new. And that has a lot of merit.

When Electronic Arts told us that they were going to release a video game from a children’s novel with great success, I bite the bullet and borrowed the book to read it to me, because of writing a report with first-hand information. I couldn’t want less to read a children’s book about an 11-year-old magician… Then I borrowed the second one and then bought them all, queuing “with the children” each time a new one was launched.

My son got hooked on Pokémon when he was six years old and there he is, at 17, giving evolutions. A few years ago, at a gamification conference, it was said that the average age of Pokémon players was 30 years (then I also talked about this). And I believe it. There are not many “adult” games that offer as many strategic and tactical combinations as Pokémon, however adorable their creatures may seem.

Make a “whatever” That children and adults like it equally has merit, a lot of merit, because it means that it has various levels of understanding, that it provides elements that are capable of being liked by some without disturbing others. And it’s a shame when prejudices prevent us from enjoying them. How glad I am that EA decided to release Harry Potter… And I’m not saying it because of the game (which I didn’t like).

Thanks, perhaps, to that I’m getting old I was talking about at the beginning, I have always liked Mario, I loved Kingdom Hearts (and what a turra that happened in its day with Donald and Goofy), I have not disgusted the LEGO, the Rayman have always seemed delicious and I must admit that I had a great time with Knack, no matter how much they put him off a donkey (it tasted little like a PS4 launch game). Of course, The Wind Waker is one of my favorite Zelda’s, aesthetics included.

No, it is not good to get carried away by prejudices, but lately, I also read a lot out there that it goes exclusively shit for PS5 that of Ratchet & Clank A separate dimension, which is a game for children … Really?

Probably Insomniac Games saga is one of the most paradigmatic examples of games “For all audiences” that exist, with the permission of any Mario. Direct fun, a lot of action, a lot of sense of humor with various reading levels, many surprises to discover … They are one of those games that you drink without realizing it, whether you are 10 or 50 years old. And, I insist again, achieving that is not easy.

Perhaps the best way to remove negative connotations from “for all audiences”, is that we enjoy them, we recognize it. Let the fans of Pokemon, Kingdom Hearts, Mario, Ratchet, LittleBigPanet or Splatoon … and Ori and the Blind Forest, raise their hands, which I have seen listed as “game for children”. Let’s see if we can no longer be ashamed to admit that yes, we enjoy ourselves as children. With a bit of luck, children (and not so young) could be encouraged to discover them.

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