Photo: Andy Baio
When writer and technologist Andy Baio had a son, he thought it would be a good opportunity for an experiment (as you do):
I love games, and I genuinely wanted Eliot to love and appreciate them too. So, here was my experiment:
What happens when a 21st-century kid plays through video game history in chronological order?
Start with the arcade classics and Atari 2600, from Asteroids to Zaxxon. After a year, move on to the 8-bit era with the NES and Sega classics. The next year, the SNES, Game Boy, and classic PC adventure games. Then the PlayStation and N64, Xbox and GBA, and so on until we’re caught up with the modern era of gaming.
It’s a great bit of writing on nostalgia and games, but on a practical level, Baio’s son Eliot is the envy of any score-chaser, finishing The Legend of Zelda entirely on his own by age six. Now eight, he could be the youngest person ever to completely beat Mossmouth’s popular, punishing roguelike Spelunky.
Given that many people think esports as college athletics could actually become A Thing, start training your kids young, one supposes.