I have a slightly different question here.
I was born in 2001 and of course I was born into the generation in which gaming is more important than ever. My parents are both in their mid-50s, come from conservative families and were probably "too old" to know gaming from childhood. Through friends, school and my older sister, I naturally grew up with video games as a "new", massive medium, especially with the Nintendo handhelds, the first DS, DSi, 3Ds etc. My parents never had anything against it and we also had our wishes fulfilled but never really understood because they did not grow up themselves and never dealt with it later. After a switch I buy a One X, my first "real" console with big 3rd party titles, I have a lot to catch up on.
In this context, my father was especially interested in it and asked what it all is, so different console manufacturers, publishers, studios, target groups, hardware and differences between the consoles and what the fascination is. Of course I could never really explain this to him as a younger child, but now that he inquires about it for the first time I'm a little overwhelmed as to explain the whole thing to a 56 year old.
Sure he watched me playing from time to time, but probably didn't really understand him. Do you have any tips on how I can "gently" explain everything to him so that he can get an idea of why it is such a booming, fascinating industry or I would like to play a game with him which is not too complicated.
I would teach it carefully, not start with gaming. My parents are a bit older too, but they are never really interested in computers, cell phones etc. You could start with something from his time, cameras, how many pixels they have, then with cell phones how many pixels they have today.
Then later play songs on cell phones etc… Then you can say that you can download everything from the Playstore, from physical measuring devices (if the cell phone has a sensor for it) to Sudoku or chess.
Then you could go on and on.
If you showed him the game so easily, it would be too much and he might lose interest or believe that it is for younger people and not for older people.
It's a break from the real world.
Just let it play
