Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: pontiouspilot

I am obviously from Canada....that is the blip to the north of USA. Specifically from northern Alberta near mile 0 of Alaska highway. I know there are 3-4 other active Canucks on here.

There are some interesting common denominators in reading this thread: early interest in history and reading (much to my mother's dismay I read rise and fall of 3rd Reich when 12), early war gaming (I started when 11), some model builders, and many ex-military...at least amongst the Yanks. It strikes me that the demographics put 80% of us in the 45-60 yr range, obviously most with post-secondary schooling (I have 2 degrees). I wonder if the generations behind us are here and I'm missing them or whether our ilk are a dying breed?

The Boomers and early Gen Xers grew up with board games and some of the younger of us had something like an Atari while teens. Computers really weren't capable of doing even a reasonable job with a complex wargame until the late 80s. The early wargames were essentially translations of board games onto the screen. As computing power continued to improve, game makers added more eye candy in the way of graphics and real time features.

The Millennials mostly grew up with live action, real time games. Games that require you sit back and think about it a bit is alien. So I'm not surprised this is mostly an older person hobby.

As far as the demographics go, I'm not a perfect fit, but close:

History and reading at an early age - I was always a history geek, but a bit slow in picking up reading for entertainment. My 10 year older sister was reading voraciously by age 3, can read blindingly fast, and I just felt I couldn't "compete". I did become much more of a reader as a teen and always had a pleasure reading book in my bag during college.
Model building - Started at age 3 and have an embarrassingly large stash of unbuilt models today.
Ex-military - never went that route. I knew I would chafe at the culture and I probably would have been 4F anyway (bad knees).
45-60 - Lower end of that range, very early Gen X.
Post secondary - Only a bachelors. Got accepted to grad school but decided not to go.

Bill

Born in 1980 ... There is hope? Jocmeister and Obvert are also around my age I think? Never served in the military but I did qualify as an engineer/deck officer for freighters (got about 330 sea days) before getting a Bachelor of Engineering.

NY- Peekskille MA
El Paso - BT & AIT
Nurnberg- 1stAD
Towson-Maryland
......50odd years....(yes, some were quite odd)

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

I meet all the qualifications except for education. It appears my lack of education makes me look like a fern amongst a forest of redwoods.

I did qualify for an advanced degree from the University of California at Hard Knoxx [:D].

Thought this was about where we are from. Not our creds.

Don't knock yourself for the lack of an education.

I'm a self taught architect with neither a degree nor a license and serve in the same capacity as any other staff architect and am recognized in the design community in the Tampa Bay area as one of the most competent around.

Personally, I have had the severe displeasure of being forced to work with far too many degreed and licensed incompetent buffoons to ever be gullible enough to accept possession of them as adequate indicators of intelligence and competence.

Been playing wargames for 42 years having cut my teeth on the Avalon Hill and SPI classics of the 1970s.

My collection of board wargames is well over 200. I was a beta tester for Avalon Hill's classic Advanced Third Reich with my name appearing in the design credits.

Don't really know if those are adequate creds to impress anyone and really don't care.

I was mostly joking. I am impressed by the level of education in this group. I am not always impressed by someone
having a degree. I've known too many people with degrees whose IQ squared was still a single digit number. But the
knowledge of the members on this forum is staggering and never ceases to amaze.

Born in New York City, lived in New Jersey for many years, interrupted by college in Ohio. I retired from gov't service and moved to Braz(s)il where I now reside with my very patient wife.

I got into war gaming with Avalon Hill's Midway in the mid 1960s and here I am today.

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: pontiouspilot

I am obviously from Canada....that is the blip to the north of USA. Specifically from northern Alberta near mile 0 of Alaska highway. I know there are 3-4 other active Canucks on here.

There are some interesting common denominators in reading this thread: early interest in history and reading (much to my mother's dismay I read rise and fall of 3rd Reich when 12), early war gaming (I started when 11), some model builders, and many ex-military...at least amongst the Yanks. It strikes me that the demographics put 80% of us in the 45-60 yr range, obviously most with post-secondary schooling (I have 2 degrees). I wonder if the generations behind us are here and I'm missing them or whether our ilk are a dying breed?

The Boomers and early Gen Xers grew up with board games and some of the younger of us had something like an Atari while teens. Computers really weren't capable of doing even a reasonable job with a complex wargame until the late 80s. The early wargames were essentially translations of board games onto the screen. As computing power continued to improve, game makers added more eye candy in the way of graphics and real time features.

The Millennials mostly grew up with live action, real time games. Games that require you sit back and think about it a bit is alien. So I'm not surprised this is mostly an older person hobby.

As far as the demographics go, I'm not a perfect fit, but close:

History and reading at an early age - I was always a history geek, but a bit slow in picking up reading for entertainment. My 10 year older sister was reading voraciously by age 3, can read blindingly fast, and I just felt I couldn't "compete". I did become much more of a reader as a teen and always had a pleasure reading book in my bag during college.
Model building - Started at age 3 and have an embarrassingly large stash of unbuilt models today.
Ex-military - never went that route. I knew I would chafe at the culture and I probably would have been 4F anyway (bad knees).
45-60 - Lower end of that range, very early Gen X.
Post secondary - Only a bachelors. Got accepted to grad school but decided not to go.

Bill

Forgive me as I may make multiple posts here, sifting through the thread in the airport as I catch up on what I missed this week...

First, my strongest reaction is to the perception of Millennials as having short attention spans for games, more action games, etc. I'm smack in the middle of said generation (b. 1986). I grew up when computers "came of age", as it were. It's been very interesting. I observe strong differences between myself and others just a few years older or just a few years younger - there is such a difference in my cohort within just a few years. The rate of change of technology definitely has a lot to do with this. People just a few years my senior do tend to be a bit more disconnected, more old school, than those a few years my junior - but this is by no means true of all of them. Some of those older than I are more connected/pugged in than I am, and some of those younger than I display technology habits more reminiscent of Boomers. It's somewhat comical to me that just last night I was sitting in a bar and the Boomer couple next to me was taking selfies and Snapchatting/Instragramming, while I was reading my tablet and am in a domestic relationship with a veritable Luddite who sends maybe 5 texts per year. In any case, I digress... I meant to make the point that the perception of Millennials as being all into fast paced action games or simple mobile games is probably missing the mark, in that if you look more broadly at gaming you'll notice that it's a universal trend. As gaming becomes more popular, more people play. Those Millennials (and others) who flock to games such as Call of Duty, Wii-style group games, MMOs, and mobile games may not have gamed at all if the technology for these games didn't exist. I think we're just witnessing the universalization of gaming. The degree to which gaming has become accepted, and in some cases encouraged, within our culture compared to just 10 years ago is astounding to me whenever I step back to think about it.


In any case, my origin story, which I've probably related several times in various forms:

Got an NES for Christmas in 1990. It came with Super Mario 3/Duck Hunt combo. It was awesome. Even before that, I'd played arcade-style games forever. My father purchased about a dozen over the years from auctions at the state fairgrounds. My parents still have 7 of them. My mother wants to get rid of them, and I'd love to have them/restore them if I had the resources, but I don't. They have several classics. A table-style Dig-Dug, Zaxxon, Rastan (OK less of a classic but a great game), Centipede, and Baby Pac-Man. Great stuff.

I didn't watch a lot of TV growing up, played outside in the woods building forts and stuff instead (does that sound like your typical Millennial, eh?), but I'd see commercials for games like BattleQuest I think it was called. I ended up getting a game for Christmas one year in maybe 6th or 7th grade. I forget the name, but it was very similar in backstory to Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It was played on a vinyl map with large hexes. There were the forces of the Empire and Chaos + beasties. There were several scenarios, and a big plastic tower and plastic hedges to flesh out the map with extra terrain. It was great. I think it was called Battle Masters. I still have that stuff, though it was long ago co-opted for use as Warhammer/40K pieces.

Around the same time, I met a friend who introduced my to Pacific Theater of Operations: 2 on SNES. I must've played that for hundreds or thousands of hours via video rental stores. I'd rent for a weekend and never leave the house. When I could afford to rent it again, usually no one else had rented it in between so my saved games remained. I eventually purchased it in high school or college. Occasionally I will pull up the soundtrack on YouTube while I'm doing a turn at work...

Other than that, I was always drawn to the WW2 section of the local library. I must've checked out that Campaign for Guadalcanal book a dozen times a year, just for the drawings of ships. I built models, and preferred WW2 planes and eventually moved on to ships. Also dabbled in rocketry. I liked the books with picture sections, so I could flip to the pictures in between chapters and browse. My mother had a copy of the Midway novel, and I eventually watched the film - Henry Fonda, I believe. Decent flick. IIRC it used actual footage from the battle, yes?

Never went military, although I almost did. In some ways, I wish I had - the benefits to veterans are great. Anything to get a leg up these days... My first year at college, I was having some troubles. I went to the Navy recruiter's office after winter break. After some tests and whatnot, they wanted to make me a "Nuke". I hesitated. I wasn't sure I was really "into" the modern Navy, and that I'd probably get disillusioned. Obviously, I ended up not doing it, but the reason why was a girl. Figures, right? That decision shaped my life in a lot of ways. Don't know where I'd be if I'd gone through with it. Possibly not on these forums.


And these days, I live in Maryland just outside of DC. I think that's included in the "Eastern USA" off-map hex in the game [8D]. I'm from Des Moines, IA, originally.

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

I was mostly joking. I am impressed by the level of education in this group. I am not always impressed by someone
having a degree. I've known too many people with degrees whose IQ squared was still a single digit number. But the
knowledge of the members on this forum is staggering and never ceases to amaze.

A friend of mine has described some people as knowing the specific gravity of marmalade, but unable to get the lid off the jar.

I've known many a Mensan who may have done well at school, but completely failed life.

Bill

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Forgive me as I may make multiple posts here, sifting through the thread in the airport as I catch up on what I missed this week...

First, my strongest reaction is to the perception of Millennials as having short attention spans for games, more action games, etc. I'm smack in the middle of said generation (b. 1986). I grew up when computers "came of age", as it were. It's been very interesting. I observe strong differences between myself and others just a few years older or just a few years younger - there is such a difference in my cohort within just a few years. The rate of change of technology definitely has a lot to do with this. People just a few years my senior do tend to be a bit more disconnected, more old school, than those a few years my junior - but this is by no means true of all of them. Some of those older than I are more connected/pugged in than I am, and some of those younger than I display technology habits more reminiscent of Boomers. It's somewhat comical to me that just last night I was sitting in a bar and the Boomer couple next to me was taking selfies and Snapchatting/Instragramming, while I was reading my tablet and am in a domestic relationship with a veritable Luddite who sends maybe 5 texts per year. In any case, I digress... I meant to make the point that the perception of Millennials as being all into fast paced action games or simple mobile games is probably missing the mark, in that if you look more broadly at gaming you'll notice that it's a universal trend. As gaming becomes more popular, more people play. Those Millennials (and others) who flock to games such as Call of Duty, Wii-style group games, MMOs, and mobile games may not have gamed at all if the technology for these games didn't exist. I think we're just witnessing the universalization of gaming. The degree to which gaming has become accepted, and in some cases encouraged, within our culture compared to just 10 years ago is astounding to me whenever I step back to think about it.

Nothing with humans is ever 100%. There are Millennials who like this game such as yourself, but I have noticed that younger gamers more often want a lot of action and older gamers tend to be more comfortable with the slower pace of a strategy game.

I noticed a sharp difference between those born before 1966. I was born in 1966 and through high school, my grade always had far more discipline problems and more learning problems than the year before. I went to three different schools, one was ranked as tied for the best K-8 school in Los Angeles County, and another was an elite high school with a lot of kids turned away every year. The year ahead in all three schools was well behaved, and kept on pace. My classes always lagged behind what was expected and had a lot of discipline problems. One of my teachers in high school told us we were the worst junior class (year 3) the school had ever had, but from what he heard about the current sophomore class (year 2), we were going to make them look like geniuses.

Depending on who you refer to the demarcation line between the generations is different. Many sources I've seen start GenX around the mid-60s at some point and end it around 1980. From what I saw between those born in 1965 and 1966, I think the line was right there.

That said, I always related better to Boomers than GenX. Even today I have more Boomer friends than GenX or later. My SO is a Boomer and we do relate quite well culturally, though our tastes in music are very different. She hates 80s music and that was the music of my youth. She likes punk (she was even in a punk band once) and grunge and I like neither.

In my case, my family and how I grew up probably had something to do with it. My parents were in their 40s when I came along, so they were the generation that raised the Boomers and there were few kids in my neighborhood. When I was a little kid, all the other kids were teenagers and by the time I was 6-7 almost all the neighbors were empty nesters. So there was no pack of kids my age to hang out with. Most of the people I related to were around my parents' age. That probably made me think more like a Boomer than a GenX.

I've also noticed a big demarcation around 1955. Those born before then more often have trouble grokking computers than those born 1955 or later. Those born in the mid-50s were the first generation to experience calculators in college. The concept of electronic aids came into their consciousness before they finished growing up so when computers came along, they took to them quite easily. Now I have known quite gifted programmers born in the 30s, and some younger people who can't figure out how to turn on a computer, but it seems more common that those born 1955 and later tend to have fewer problems with the basics of computers.

In any case, my origin story, which I've probably related several times in various forms:

Got an NES for Christmas in 1990. It came with Super Mario 3/Duck Hunt combo. It was awesome. Even before that, I'd played arcade-style games forever. My father purchased about a dozen over the years from auctions at the state fairgrounds. My parents still have 7 of them. My mother wants to get rid of them, and I'd love to have them/restore them if I had the resources, but I don't. They have several classics. A table-style Dig-Dug, Zaxxon, Rastan (OK less of a classic but a great game), Centipede, and Baby Pac-Man. Great stuff.

I didn't watch a lot of TV growing up, played outside in the woods building forts and stuff instead (does that sound like your typical Millennial, eh?), but I'd see commercials for games like BattleQuest I think it was called. I ended up getting a game for Christmas one year in maybe 6th or 7th grade. I forget the name, but it was very similar in backstory to Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It was played on a vinyl map with large hexes. There were the forces of the Empire and Chaos + beasties. There were several scenarios, and a big plastic tower and plastic hedges to flesh out the map with extra terrain. It was great. I think it was called Battle Masters. I still have that stuff, though it was long ago co-opted for use as Warhammer/40K pieces.

Around the same time, I met a friend who introduced my to Pacific Theater of Operations: 2 on SNES. I must've played that for hundreds or thousands of hours via video rental stores. I'd rent for a weekend and never leave the house. When I could afford to rent it again, usually no one else had rented it in between so my saved games remained. I eventually purchased it in high school or college. Occasionally I will pull up the soundtrack on YouTube while I'm doing a turn at work...

Other than that, I was always drawn to the WW2 section of the local library. I must've checked out that Campaign for Guadalcanal book a dozen times a year, just for the drawings of ships. I built models, and preferred WW2 planes and eventually moved on to ships. Also dabbled in rocketry. I liked the books with picture sections, so I could flip to the pictures in between chapters and browse. My mother had a copy of the Midway novel, and I eventually watched the film - Henry Fonda, I believe. Decent flick. IIRC it used actual footage from the battle, yes?

Never went military, although I almost did. In some ways, I wish I had - the benefits to veterans are great. Anything to get a leg up these days... My first year at college, I was having some troubles. I went to the Navy recruiter's office after winter break. After some tests and whatnot, they wanted to make me a "Nuke". I hesitated. I wasn't sure I was really "into" the modern Navy, and that I'd probably get disillusioned. Obviously, I ended up not doing it, but the reason why was a girl. Figures, right? That decision shaped my life in a lot of ways. Don't know where I'd be if I'd gone through with it. Possibly not on these forums.


And these days, I live in Maryland just outside of DC. I think that's included in the "Eastern USA" off-map hex in the game [8D]. I'm from Des Moines, IA, originally.

It sounds like you had a childhood a bit like previous generations like I did.

Bill

So what is the specific gravity of marmalade? [:D]

Beats me, though I would guess it's more than 1.

Bill

I was born in North Carolina in 1954. Lived most of my life in the land of the Cherokee.
Joined the Navy twice. Don’t regret it.

I started with plastic toy soldiers and board games in the early 1960’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VA6PwvvS04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rQKK33R5M

Played a lot of paintball in the 1980’s. I’m too old and slow now.

I’m good with computers but my profession (Architect) demands it.
I like computer action games as well. But not so much anymore, my reflexes have slowed down too.

I don’t miss the 1960’s. It was a bad decade.

Born 1950. Grew up on AH wargames since 1960's. Retired after 35 years in finance industry. Now live in Glendora, CA.

Born 1973, never been in the army (managed a year in the cadets!)

Started off with Spec 48K games like Arnhem, and played the odd board war game, specifically "Russian Front"

Moved on to WITE then wandered over here

Strangely, wargaming is not even my main hobby, which is getting very annoyed at Burnley FC

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

I meet all the qualifications except for education. It appears my lack of education makes me look like a fern amongst a forest of redwoods.

I did qualify for an advanced degree from the University of California at Hard Knoxx [:D].

Thought this was about where we are from. Not our creds.

Don't knock yourself for the lack of an education.

I'm a self taught architect with neither a degree nor a license and serve in the same capacity as any other staff architect and am recognized in the design community in the Tampa Bay area as one of the most competent around.

Personally, I have had the severe displeasure of being forced to work with far too many degreed and licensed incompetent buffoons to ever be gullible enough to accept possession of them as adequate indicators of intelligence and competence.

Been playing wargames for 42 years having cut my teeth on the Avalon Hill and SPI classics of the 1970s.

My collection of board wargames is well over 200. I was a beta tester for Avalon Hill's classic Advanced Third Reich with my name appearing in the design credits.

Don't really know if those are adequate creds to impress anyone and really don't care.

I was mostly joking. I am impressed by the level of education in this group. I am not always impressed by someone
having a degree. I've known too many people with degrees whose IQ squared was still a single digit number. But the
knowledge of the members on this forum is staggering and never ceases to amaze.

Thinking about it I am not very surprised that so many are well educated. For me this game is all about learning (history, mechanics, strategies etc etc) and unless you enjoy to the process of learning youre likely not going to bother with this game for very long.

Oops - broke the rules with two posts!

Guys I F***D up. I posted twice on the original thread.

Born in Brooklyn NYC and grew up and lived most of my life in NYC. Still work in Brooklyn. Live in Northport, a village on the north shore of Long Island. until recently a lobster fishing village. I'm of European decent, mostly English, and my family has been in the country since before the Revolution. They fought on the losing side but we decided to stay on anyway. Big mistake....not staying here, that worked out.....leaving the Crown. Not so sure that was a good idea

West Virginia. Grew up here, joined the army toured around some and came back home.

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Obviously, I ended up not doing it, but the reason why was a girl. Figures, right? That decision shaped my life in a lot of ways. Don't know where I'd be if I'd gone through with it. Possibly not on these forums.


And these days, I live in Maryland just outside of DC. I think that's included in the "Eastern USA" off-map hex in the game [8D]. I'm from Des Moines, IA, originally.

Ahh, so many decisions made for just the same reason! [:)]

I teach a lot of kids now born after I graduated from HS, and it's pretty odd to watch how they deal with technology. Much more into the phone and anything it offers, including games. At homie though games are just the norm, and it's mostly Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, etc. I try to ask them a lot about this stuff to know them better, but it's almost like they never even think other people don't do exactly what they do. They have a hard time often understanding that I would need this stuff explained! [:D]

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: pontiouspilot

I am obviously from Canada....that is the blip to the north of USA. Specifically from northern Alberta near mile 0 of Alaska highway. I know there are 3-4 other active Canucks on here.

There are some interesting common denominators in reading this thread: early interest in history and reading (much to my mother's dismay I read rise and fall of 3rd Reich when 12), early war gaming (I started when 11), some model builders, and many ex-military...at least amongst the Yanks. It strikes me that the demographics put 80% of us in the 45-60 yr range, obviously most with post-secondary schooling (I have 2 degrees). I wonder if the generations behind us are here and I'm missing them or whether our ilk are a dying breed?

The Boomers and early Gen Xers grew up with board games and some of the younger of us had something like an Atari while teens. Computers really weren't capable of doing even a reasonable job with a complex wargame until the late 80s. The early wargames were essentially translations of board games onto the screen. As computing power continued to improve, game makers added more eye candy in the way of graphics and real time features.

The Millennials mostly grew up with live action, real time games. Games that require you sit back and think about it a bit is alien. So I'm not surprised this is mostly an older person hobby.

As far as the demographics go, I'm not a perfect fit, but close:

History and reading at an early age - I was always a history geek, but a bit slow in picking up reading for entertainment. My 10 year older sister was reading voraciously by age 3, can read blindingly fast, and I just felt I couldn't "compete". I did become much more of a reader as a teen and always had a pleasure reading book in my bag during college.
Model building - Started at age 3 and have an embarrassingly large stash of unbuilt models today.
Ex-military - never went that route. I knew I would chafe at the culture and I probably would have been 4F anyway (bad knees).
45-60 - Lower end of that range, very early Gen X.
Post secondary - Only a bachelors. Got accepted to grad school but decided not to go.

Bill

Born in 1980 ... There is hope? Jocmeister and Obvert are also around my age I think? Never served in the military but I did qualify as an engineer/deck officer for freighters (got about 330 sea days) before getting a Bachelor of Engineering.

That sea duty is fantastic..Thank you for your contributions..Maybe you should consider changing your name to a more nautical theme so we might remember your experience in that area..??I'm sure it helped Richard Dana..

Born right after WW2 in Indianapolis. (Dad's "hot rod" money was used to pay for my birth.)
Little brother was born at Indiantown Gap military hospital. We lived down the road from Major Winters, a friend of my fathers'
Dad went to Korea and when he returned in 1953 we started moving around..All the army bases east of the Mississippi worth mention, I suspect.Wooden barracks and the "canals" in the middle of army streets used to be as common as grass in my childhood.

Dad DEROS'd, we settled in his hometown, Indianapolis..

I've been around the world twice and never been to California,(the granola state)..LOL