http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/41f8bcc0-1158-11e2-a637-00144feabdc0.html#axzz29H2l6XIP. A mother and columnist for FT was asked to be on a judging panel for video games.

She enjoyed Fez, found Catherine interesting (but stressful), and loved Journey.

She hated Super Mario Bros 3D Land because it was too difficult.

Most importantly, even she knows Mass Effect 3 is boring.

When I first read the title I assumed it would be some 50 year old who has never played games yet sits watching telly for hours saying how people who played games were mentalists and stabbers and how we should all get lives. I was pleasantly surprised.

I hold fast that you are never too old for games.

This was also a problem I had with ME femshep. I could never really relate to the woman I was playing.

I enjoyed reading that article, it was refreshing. I tend to avoid reading most 'mainstream' gaming articles since they are in the pockets of the companies who create the games. This was fresh, unique and interesting.

I thought that's what this thread was going to be about . One's never to old to play games.

Er, yeah. I remember plenty of people who were pretty serious patrons of the arcade games when I was growing up who must be her peers; I doubt they suddenly hit a particular age and decided they were now too old to be gaming any longer...

This woman is as clueless as a fly in Siberia. Video game have always been a "guys thing". Only recently that we're seeing a significant amount of females playing video games. She said there's so much to do outside of playing video games, like reading books, writing emails and bidding on Ebay.

That's exactly the activities my sister and her friends do----and they also think games are for nerds.

I think I'm seeing a lot of what Dara O'Briain said at play here, which isn't to say she's in the wrong at all about any of her opinions, but video games as a medium are different from books or movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKIiUsbOO24

I knew some snooty people in my agegroup who acted thus. But it was pretty clear that they never actually enjoyed games, just played because other people were. Taking their get out clauses of 'outgrown' it and have become too 'mature' to play games....

He has a point, but we all have to start (assuming your a gamer) at some point. I'm not great at games but I get through them. I think he and people like him just struggle to get the basics down because they've not had enough experience- like using a controller properly for example. I've put some non gaming olds on a controller and watching them is painful. Then again I have the ease of being introduced to games as a young child so was able to grow up with them, what I am trying to say is 'I svck, but it can't be that hard can it?'

Let's see I'm currently reading Tom Clancy's HAWX and once that's done I'm reading Tom Clancy's Endwar (oooh I'm looking so forward to reading this), I rarly write emails and I'd rather buy stuff on ebay or Amazon then bid on items that someone's just going to snipe at the very last second and waste my time .

You know, your avatar reminds me of those chicks from Saints Row 3.

I read an interesting article that responds to this from Rock Paper Shotgun: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/21/please-value-your-education-in-the-school-of-games/

It mainly talks about one of the points in her article that others have been picking up on: The idea that games have no cultural value.

True, there were always a few of them: but they'll just move on to other things they pretend to enjoy in order to fit in... I'd say that they're the type who don't grow up, they just get older, but given that the same applies to me, I think I'm on rather thin ice!