this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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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 πŸ‘Œ, 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.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 7 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I know, but just let me have my old man yells at cloud moment.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No, you're not. But I like you anyway.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Not a boomer, confirmed.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

That's OK, because older people use the term Gen-Z for idiots of all ages.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

But we're not o.... ah nevermind.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

"Whatevers" in GenX.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I'm a younger millennial.
I'm out of my 20s. My back hurts. You're wrong :D

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Boomer is a state of mind, love, and this post is a shining example of boomerism.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

I'd say closer to the xennial "forgotten generation" type. The playtesters of all of your favorite franchises didn't fall behind as far as you think.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You seem like an intelligent and discerning person, so I'm sure you'll appreciate that the only possible response to this is "ok boomer"

[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago

Dammit! Upvoted with great begrudgement.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Guys, IT ISN'T A REFERENCE TO THE BOOMER GENERATION. It's boomer as in shotgun-go-BOOM.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

This is worse tho. You can't just erase the bfg like this

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Boomer cope

[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago (9 children)

I love the term. For me it's not just a shooter in an older style but also a shooter that goes BOOM. Much better than boring cover shooters.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh come on. It's funny. Boomer is more of a state of mind descriptor at this point. Don't be such a boomer bro.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Boomer Shooter = Shooter that goes boom

Boomer shooter

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago

I never even considered that the name referred to baby boomers I thought it just meant they went "boom"

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Worth noting that the boomer wojak meme started as "That 30 year old boomer". It was never about actual Baby Boomers.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

This is it, notice how Google Trends[1] shows a rise in "30 year old boomer" not long before "boomer shooter" becomes more commonplace. It's just the whole applying "boomer" to things like being stuck in their ways or boomer-like behavior, rather than age, that took off a few years back.

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=boomer%20shooter,30%20year%20old%20boomer&hl=en

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Old=boomer sorry. That's just the way it turned out, nothing we can do about it. Raging against new slang is just gonna make us more out of touch, and intensify the feeling of being old, so I just accept it and try to keep up. Boomer is old now, not just the Baby Boomers.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm 26 and I've already been called a boomer by younger people. I don't really see the problem as to me it's just funny and reminds me to try my best not to eventually become a boomer that hates everything that isn't how it used to be.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (10 children)

We were calling them Doom-likes before FPS became a thing, maybe it's time to bring it back as a sub category.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Doom clones!

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (3 children)

It feels like everybody, here are just a few examples. And if that doesn't cut it for you, Steam has a whole-ass tag for boomer shooters.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

I dunno, my rich uncle is a boomer and back in the 90s he was one of the only people I knew who could afford a gucci PC and every big box FPS game. So it kinda makes sense from that perspective.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It is utterly bizarre to me out of all the misnomers and ridiculous (sometimes offensive) terms out there in the media/hobby world, I see β€œboomer shooter” complained about so much more than any other. This is like the third rant I’ve seen about it in a week.

I thought Twitter and such were making a mountain out of a mole hill with how people responded to the term β€œBoomerβ€œ in past years but clearly it ruffles peoples feathers way more than it should. Half the time I go through the comment histories and these are the same people that use ableist slurs regularly. I am not suggesting that OP does, I have not looked at their comments. Just a general observation.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Boomer today is used for anything that's old, and I wouldn't be surprised if you get Gen Xers that get called boomers. Since boomer shooters are a homage to old shooters, we call them boomer shooter. The ultimate problem is that it's just catchy, so unless you find a more catchy term, you're shit outta luck.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I just think of it like boom as in explosions. Boom-boom shooty-shoot; or boomer shooter if you prefer brevity.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It's marketing doublespeak dreamed up by the totally deranged and it works

You have to remember its millennials and Gen Z experiencing this genre, not boomers.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

An actual boomer shooter would be like Space Invaders.

But at least it's got a name I suppose so if you like them you can find them and differentiate them from all your online XP bar tutorial modern bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Back to Doom-clone it is then.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

I've been saying this forever too! Boomers were the ones complaining about thier kids playing them back in the day because of the violence and demonic imagery.

In the 90s people called them "Doom-like"s. I usually just say "90s FPS games". Which I guess could be confusing and make people think I'm talking about framerate, but eh.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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".

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's such a fun phrase to say, though.

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