{"id":532636,"date":"2026-04-15T18:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532636\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T18:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:08:09","slug":"why-im-embracing-the-latest-uncool-thing-in-gaming-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532636\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I\u2019m embracing the latest uncool thing in gaming | Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

While researching women\u2019s experiences in multiplayer video games recently, I came across this thread<\/a> on the subreddit about Bungie\u2019s latest live shooter, Marathon<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve played a lot of shooters, and as a feminine-presenting player tbh it\u2019s often a struggle,\u201d it reads. \u201cI\u2019ve heard all the \u2018get back to the kitchen\u2019 jokes \u2026 \u200bBut Marathon has been completely different, guys. I haven\u2019t had a single issue, people have been incredibly kind and helpful\u2026 \u200bThe community feels genuinely welcoming to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top-voted reply? \u201cBenefit of being an unc game.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the heck is an unc game? It didn\u2019t take me long to discover that \u201cunc\u201d (short for uncle) is the latest semi-disparaging gen Z name<\/a> for anyone over about 30. \u201cUncslop\u201d refers to the implicitly terrible games beloved by this older generation of players; basically anything made in the 1990s or 2000s, from Knights of the Old Republic to World of Warcraft. An unc game, then, is a game predominantly played by millennials (and older) \u2013 and Marathon is one of them. A week or so later, I read Emanuel Maiberg\u2019s article for 404 Media<\/a>, which dug into the game\u2019s unc credentials.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been waiting a long time for this cultural milestone: the point at which video games have been around long enough for old games (and older gamers) to become fundamentally embarrassing. I\u2019m totally here for it \u2013 long live the unc game. May uncs enjoy slower-paced shooters and 12- to 15-hour cinematic narrative games for ever, while simultaneously decrying the frenetic pace and aesthetic overwhelm of young-people games. This is the eternal generational cycle, and it should be embraced and enjoyed.<\/p>\n

Generational divide \u2026 World of Warcraft. Photograph: Blizzard Entertainment<\/p>\n

Developers and publishers should consider embracing the unc game, too. The eternal chase for ever-increasing profits has caused large swathes of the games industry to pivot towards hugely expensive and risky live-service games or quasi-exploitative free-to-play timesinks \u2013 which have wrought havoc on the sustainability of the sector. Meanwhile, the unc demographic \u2013 older, time-poor, but also wealthier \u2013 has been propping up gaming\u2019s traditional business model for years. Uncs buy consoles. Uncs are used to spending money on games. Adult gamers are a profitable demographic \u2013 maybe people should keep making games for us?<\/p>\n

Roughly 50-60% of all gamers are over 30. The average age has been creeping up for a decade, and is now 41. Circana data<\/a> suggests that 97% \u2013 97%! \u2013 of console purchasers in the US last year were over 25. The natural conclusion is that this is a problem for long-established players in the gaming industry, who are failing to reach young audiences, or pricing them out \u2013 and that is true to an extent. But older gamers aren\u2019t dying out \u2013 they\u2019re playing into their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. I would like to posit that it\u2019s OK to also make things explicitly for this demographic, just as the rest of the cultural world does. It\u2019s not an either-or situation.<\/p>\n

Because gaming is such a neophilic pastime, there is always a sense that, as the new world is born, the old one must die. But gaming has become intergenerational. Media outlets such as Time Extension and game-developers such as Digital Eclipse are now supported entirely by people\u2019s sustained interest in retro games. Each week sees releases of new games that play with, pay homage to, and build on the ideas and aesthetics of influential 1990s and 00s video games . And even as the influencer economy has killed off a lot of old media,many of the writers, video essayists and streamers covering games are at least old enough to remember what Banjo-Kazooie was.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re rapidly approaching middle age \u2013 or are already there \u2013 and worried that the gaming world will soon leave you behind, take comfort: I suspect that unc games are not going anywhere.<\/p>\n

What to playSuperb modern stagecraft \u2026 Darwin\u2019s Paradox! Photograph: ZDT Studio<\/p>\n

An old-school platformer with superb modern stagecraft, Darwin\u2019s Paradox! feels like a playable family-favourite film<\/a>, starring a troublesome octopus who ends up sabotaging a suspicious megacorp and discovering its not-very-well-concealed secret.<\/p>\n

All of the favourite features of a bygone gaming era are here \u2013 long stealth sections, insta-deaths, some annoying checkpointing \u2013 and there are some fun octopus-specific abilities to bust out in dicey situations, such as camouflage and, of course, ink.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a surprisingly hard play, even for this veteran of 2D puzzle-platformer games, but its excellent animation, a slapstick sense of humour and detailed sets made me want to persevere. Well, that and my children, who insisted on watching me play every night until we finished it, laughing whenever poor Darwin went splat.<\/p>\n

Available on: PS5, Xbox, PC, Switch 2
Estimated playtime: about five hours<\/p>\n

What to readCost of admission \u2026 would Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 survive a Games Pass price drop? Photograph: Activision<\/p>\n

The Verge reports that Xbox\u2019s new boss, Asha Sharma, has sent an internal memo round Xbox employees that says Xbox Game Pass has become too expensive. (The subscription fee went up by almost 50%<\/a> late last year.) This suggests that Game Pass pricing might come down soon \u2013 but I fear we might get an ad-supported version instead. Or perhaps they\u2019ll just take Call of Duty off the service.<\/p>\n

In video-game movie news, FromSoftware\u2019s gothic-horror masterpiece Bloodborne is being developed as an animated film by Sony Pictures. Somewhat surprisingly, it is being produced by the YouTuber Jacksepticeye, whom I mostly remember as the guy with green hair who did a lot of screaming over Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s videos, which I watched back when my stepson was little.<\/p>\n

4A Games, the Ukrainian studio that relocated to Malta after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, is to reveal the next game<\/a> in its much loved post-apocalyptic Metro series tomorrow: Metro 2039.<\/p>\n

What to clickQuestion BlockThe hundred-dollar question \u2026 Grand Theft Auto VI. Photograph: Rockstar Games<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s question comes from Jamie:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m assuming the first \u00a3100, $100 or \u20ac100 game is near, and I believe that GTAVI will be it. Do you think people will buy a \u00a3100 base game in the current [economic] climate? I remember Mega Drive games being \u00a350 new, so is a \u00a3100 game really so bad after 30 years of progress?\u201d<\/p>\n

Adjusted for inflation, the Nintendo 64 cartridges that I bought a couple of times a year with my pocket money would cost \u00a397 each today. So no, a \u00a3100 video game is not that outrageous, especially considering how much more the average video game now costs to produce. New PS5 games and Switch 2 games regularly retail for \u00a360 or even \u00a370, at least at first. Microsoft\u2019s The Outer Worlds 2 was due to retail for $80, but the company u-turned on the price<\/a> after backlash.<\/p>\n

The $100 (or \u00a380) mark is a mental barrier that no company has yet been brave enough to cross. The rumour that Grand Theft Auto VI will be the first $100 game is pure speculation by analysts, but I won\u2019t be surprised if it does happen. Frankly, I would rather pay the occasional \u00a380-100 for a top-end game than have all of gaming reduced to phone games, subscription services and Roblox. Besides, everyactivity my family does seems to cost me \u00a3100 for a few hours \u2013 in that context, video games still feel like pretty good value.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s most likely, I think, is that games will come at different price points, from \u00a310-15 indie games all the way up to \u00a380-100 blockbusters on the PlayStation 6, whenever that comes out. Those who can, and who want to, will spend plenty money on consoles and high-end games, and those who don\u2019t will be able to game more cheaply via subscriptions, free-to-play and Steam sales. (Please, never take Steam sales away from us.)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got a question for Question Block \u2013 or anything else to say about the newsletter \u2013 hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While researching women\u2019s experiences in multiplayer video games recently, I came across this thread on the subreddit about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-532636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}