What does your younger generations think about your cabinet and the older games?

[Dazz]

Haha, my 6 year old has found a new favorite game...  He woke up early this morning and got dressed just to play con the cabinet fo a few minutes before school.  Next thing I know I hear him scream... "I did it!"  I run to the garage to see why he was screaming and he said he passed the first level....  I look to see what game it was... Burger Time!  He said that is now his favorite game. 

Hell, I don't even think I can pass the first level on Burger Time after all these years...

[shardian]

Haha, my 6 year old has found a new favorite game...  He woke up early this morning and got dressed just to play con the cabinet fo a few minutes before school.  Next thing I know I hear him scream... "I did it!"  I run to the garage to see why he was screaming and he said he passed the first level....  I look to see what game it was... Burger Time!  He said that is now his favorite game. 

Hell, I don't even think I can pass the first level on Burger Time after all these years...

What do you know, I also do a happy dance if I am lucky enough to beat the 1st level on BT.
I swear that game cheats.

[emerica]

My daughter is almost three and she loves to play pac-man or "the ghost game" as she calls it. She can tell what the game is all about, at least well enough for a two year old.  

I don't necessarily agree with arcades being generational but I do believe that they are based on exposure. Growing up in NY, my brother and I had arcades everywhere, games in local stores and the Penn station arcade. My wife and her family are from Jersey and they never were really exposed to the arcade madness of the 80's. To them the closest thing to an arcade was the local movie theatre which only housed a few games. When I have people over it is always my brother and I playing games like zoo keeper, phoenix, and other classics. The wife and brother in law could care less about any of those games. We are all in out 30's, so its not really a generational.

[weisshaupt]

but it came down to the gameplay.

This is my experience as well. I did Big Brother/Little Brothers. In his teen years we played almost as much Space War and Neo-Bomber as we did Unreal.  I got the old 2600 games out for my Nieces (12 and 14) and they laughed at the graphics and were going to show the adults how to play when they realized that the games were actually pretty hard ("what, I can't just start over where I died?")  They eventually took to the challenge. My son  is now 6 and his friends are just as happy to play the arcade (though mostly Simpsons, TMNT etc)  at our house as he is to play console games at theirs. (I don't own any current day consoles- is that bad?) The graphics were so rudimentary in the classics the gameplay had to be good.

I think many kids reject the classic games because they simply want that instant (or nearly instant) gratification of "winning" the game. Classics don't end- you never win. Its all about performance.  I think if kids are exposed early enough they can get into that. I also think its a good lesson for them, as in real life, you never "win" either.

[hulkster]

my little brother, who is 18, paid me a visit a while back.  i showed him my 4 player showcase cab with tons of arcade games.  i also have a few console emu's on it.  here is the conversation:

me: "check out my arcade cab!"

bro: "nice! what games do you have??"

me:  "all kinds!  donkey kong, street fighter, mortal kombat, joust...."

bro: "cool"  (not too excited though)

me:  (slightly disappointed with his reaction so far...so i reach a little deeper) "yeah, and when i get tired of playing all of these games, i have console games to play as well.  see?  check it out, NES, Atari, Super NES"

bro: "HOLY CRAP!!!  YOU HAVE ZELDA?!!?!?  AWESOME!!!"

seriously...i was stunned that it took me showing him a freakin console game to make him happy.  stupid new generation.