Why Games CAN Be Great For Younger People

Did Computer Games Help Me as a Kid?

I genuinely believe they did. Not in a vague, general sense, but in specific, measurable ways that I can trace back to particular games, particular moments, and a particular grey plastic console that arrived in my living room when I was seven or eight years old and completely changed the shape of my childhood.

I was not an easy kid. I was tall for my age, endlessly energetic, and with the kind of neurodivergent need for mental stimulation that makes life genuinely difficult for the people trying to keep up with you. I was always climbing something, always taking things apart to see how they worked, always looking for the next thing to chase or question or break. For a single parent, keeping up with that is exhausting in a way that is hard to fully describe. I have a lot of respect for what my mum navigated during those years, and I think the PlayStation arriving when it did was probably as much of a relief for her as it was a revelation for me.

This was pre-internet. I had no idea what a PlayStation even was when we unboxed it. There was no hype, no YouTube review, no context. It was just this thing, and then suddenly it was everything.

Spyro and the Concept of Progression

The game that got me first was Spyro. And looking back, I understand now why it hit so hard. The gameplay was exciting in a way nothing had been before, but more than that, it was the first time I had ever encountered the concept of progression in a meaningful way. Before Spyro, entertainment was largely passive. You watched something, you finished it, it was over. Spyro was different. It was the first time I felt like I was working on a project.

Things were not simply "do the thing." They were "do the thing, to unlock the next thing, to reach the next area, to find the thing you missed the first time." The problem solving kept me completely engaged in a way that climbing on furniture never quite managed. The character felt alive, the world felt explorable, and the progression felt genuinely magical in a way I had never experienced. Achievement meant something because it opened something new. That loop, of effort leading to reward leading to curiosity leading to more effort, became deeply embedded in how I approached things. I did not know it at the time, but Spyro was teaching me how to think.

Made For a Brain Like Mine

Looking back with the understanding I have now, I genuinely think early PlayStation games were made for kids like me in a way that felt almost accidental in how perfectly it landed. The pacing, the structure, the way challenge was introduced gradually and then rewarded properly, it slotted into my processing pattern in a way that very little else ever had. School felt like information being delivered whether you were ready for it or not. Spyro felt like it was waiting for me to catch up, and celebrating when I did.

There was a deliberateness to those early games that I think gets underappreciated. Nothing felt like filler. Every level had a point, every mechanic introduced something new to think about, and consequence was real. If you fell, you went back. If you missed something, you had to return for it. If you rushed, you failed. Those are not just game design principles, they are life principles, and I was absorbing them at seven years old through a television screen in my living room without anyone having to explain a single one of them to me.

Critical thinking, patience, consequence, the satisfaction of solving something properly rather than stumbling through it, all of it was present in those early games in a way that felt completely natural to engage with. They were impactful without being overwhelming. Stimulating without being chaotic. For a kid who needed mental engagement at a fairly constant rate, they were, without exaggeration, exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.

What Games Taught Me That School Did Not

That was only the beginning. As I got older and the games got bigger, so did what I was quietly absorbing from them. Total War taught me more about geography, military history and the political dynamics of different eras than I ever retained from a classroom. I could tell you about the factions of medieval Europe, the trade routes of ancient Rome, the strategic importance of certain territories, not because I studied them, but because I had to understand them to win.

Age of Mythology introduced me to ancient cultures, their gods, their stories, their terminologies, in a way that felt genuinely engaging rather than like a lesson being delivered at me. I walked away from that game knowing things about Greek, Egyptian and Norse mythology that I still carry today. And those are just two examples. Across my gaming life there have been countless moments where a game quietly handed me knowledge, perspective or a way of thinking that has stayed with me long after the console was switched off.

Where I Think It Has Gone Wrong

This is purely my opinion, and I am aware that getting older has a way of making you suspicious of things that are new. But when I look at what my stepson plays, and what I see other kids engaging with on tablets and phones, I find it genuinely difficult to identify the same kind of development happening. The progression, the problem solving, the sense of working toward something meaningful, it feels largely absent. What seems to have replaced it is something closer to the fastest possible route to a dopamine hit. Bright colours, instant reward, no consequence, no story, no real growth.

The games of my generation, at their best, always had a thread running through them. A narrative, a world, a system of development that required patience and thinking. Progression was earned, not inevitable. The difference between unlocking something because you solved a puzzle and unlocking something because enough time passed is significant, and I do not think it is talked about enough. I have found one or two mobile titles that come close, but even then the ceiling arrives quickly and the depth is not really there.

What the Solution Might Look Like

I speak to a lot of parents who want nothing to do with gaming consoles, and every time I hear it, it makes me a little sad. Not because gaming is sacred, but because the instinct to remove it entirely misses what it can genuinely offer when the right games are in the right hands. The problem is not games. The problem is the specific design philosophy behind a lot of what is most accessible and most marketed to children right now, which is built around extraction rather than enrichment. Short loops, instant reward, no consequence, no story, no real sense of working toward anything meaningful.

The difference in feel between a PlayStation 1 game and a modern tablet app is stark, and I do not think it is talked about enough. Early PlayStation games were not trying to keep you playing forever. They were trying to give you an experience. The visuals were simple, the pace was considered, and there was no notification, no pop-up, no daily reward designed to pull you back in against your will. You played because you wanted to see what came next, not because an algorithm had calculated the exact moment to flash something bright at you. They were stimulating in a way that felt clean rather than frantic, and that distinction matters enormously when you are talking about a developing brain.

Here is what I genuinely believe. If you are a parent who is unsure about gaming, the answer is probably not a brand new console with access to everything. It might be something older. A second hand PlayStation 1 or 2, a GameBoy, something from an era when games were built around experience and progression rather than engagement metrics. Those consoles and their libraries are cheap, widely available, and full of games that will do exactly what they did for my generation. Teach problem solving. Reward patience. Build the kind of critical thinking that comes from genuinely having to figure something out with no shortcut available.

The long term benefits of that are real. The kids who grew up with those games, and I am one of them, developed a relationship with difficulty that I think has served us well. We learned that effort precedes reward. We learned that going back and trying again is not failure, it is just part of the process. We learned that a world with rules and consequence is navigable if you pay attention to how it works. None of that was taught explicitly. All of it was absorbed through play.

Games did that for me. The right games, at the right age, in the right environment. That opportunity still exists for kids today, it just requires a little more intention to find it than it used to. The screen is not the enemy. What is on it, and why it was designed that way, is the conversation worth having.