Not to say I hate the genre, I actually love me some Dusk or Turbo Overkill, but why, oh why are they called Boomer Shooters?

These games clearly took inspiration from 90s FPS games, which 👌, but they were played mostly by Gen Xers and Millenials, not Boomers. When games like Duke Nukem 3D or Quake were out, Boomers were what? 30 to 50 years old? I’m sure some of them played FPS games, but there is no way they were the majority.

Whenever I see the term Boomer Shooter, my mind goes to games like Shootout! for Magnavox Odyssey. Can’t we call them something else, like Retro FPSes or something?

Anyway, rant over. Thank you for your time.

  • @Hubi@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    551 year ago

    It’s not meant to be taken literally. Language evolves and boomer no longer exclusively refers to baby boomers, it’s just a general Gen-Z term for older people.

  • BirdEnjoyer
    link
    fedilink
    201 year ago

    Lol try being a Roguelike fan.

    You correctly tell people that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a Roguelike and they look at you like you’ve grown a second head.

    Sometimes this stuff happens, and there’s basically nothing you can do about it.

    • JohnEdwa
      link
      fedilink
      31 year ago

      Major part of it is that some people differentiate hard between rogue-likes and lites, and others simply do not, and the two will never get along with each other. The thing being that if there are any type of permanent upgrade/unlock systems that makes the game easier the more you play, it is not like rogue, where instead of grinding for more max hp or dodge percentage, you “grind” knowledge and experience as a player.

      Which means that there are very, very few actual roguelikes because upgrade systems are just so cool ™ and every game obviously needs one. Or three.

  • 520
    link
    fedilink
    131 year ago

    I call them id-style shooters myself, but there is a bit of word play I like in the term ‘boomer shooter’. On top of referencing the age of the audience when they first arrived (albeit incorrectly), it is also a reference to the fact that the optimal strategy for these games is simply to blow things the fuck up. There is very little tactical play beyond what weapons to use for a given situation, and these games really love their explosive barrels and rocket launchers.

  • Yeah, it drives me nuts as well! Boomers hated video games. They still hate video games. They had congressional hearings about the evils of video games. Stupid name.

  • Deconceptualist
    link
    fedilink
    English
    91 year ago

    My dad helped me install the original Wolfenstein 3D on DOS when I was a kid. And he’s 100% a boomer (b.1947). So for that reason it always feels accurate to me.

  • @Phroon@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    91 year ago

    I always assumed that the Boom in Boomer Shooter was more “Gun go Boom”, which seemed to fit the genre quite well.

  • Shurimal
    link
    fedilink
    81 year ago

    Oldskool FPS. There. That’s the correct term. Now, who’s up for some DM-Morpheus with instagib mutator?🤘

  • Fubarberry
    link
    fedilink
    English
    6
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I get that the term doesn’t line up age wise with actually Boomers in terms of calendar years, but also video game generations are shorter than social generations. We’re currently on the “ninth-generation” of video games, and Doom came out at the beginning of the third generation of video games. So you could consider Doom-likes to be 6 generations old, and baby-boomers to be 4 generations old. So in terms of “generations”, Boomer shooters should maybe be named after an older generation such as the “Greatest Generation” (6 generations ago). Therefore I propose we call Doom-likes “Greatest Shooters” instead of “Boomer shooters”.

    • @Tak@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      51 year ago

      Boomer doesn’t have to be literal boomers but old, like it is a joke in the WoW community to call it a boomer game because most of the people playing it (especially classic) are 30+ years old.

      In the same way, people will talk about boomers in politics but Obama was the last baby boomer in the presidency.

  • mayooooo
    link
    fedilink
    61 year ago

    played mostly by Gen Xers and Snake People

    For a moment there I was really confused, I forgot about this wonderful extension