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And for videogames, do kids need to "learn" to play those, either? I'm sure just about all of us had started videogaming with games that weren't as babyish as Yoshi's Story ... and were better off for it.

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I wonder.

See, I'm only sixteen, and I grew up with Super Nintendo games (SMW, Mario All-Stars, DKC1-3, Zelda 3, and likewise). Comparing them to modern games, it's easy to see a trend of hand-holding and a shift in the focus of game developers - from "game," a la Super Mario Bros., to "experience" or "world" or "immersion," that we see in the MMORPG's and level structure and the abnormal attention to graphics nowadays. I can see this change, even as young as I am.

But it seems that mainstream gamers are even younger, in terms of maturity and experience - they've no memory of games as recent as Goldeneye, and presumably no reference point by which they can watch the progress of the game industry. They seem to have started video gaming with games very like Yoshi's Story. Sloppy level design. Unstructured and unchallenging gameplay. Bland but hyped graphics. Little or poor music. And it seems that these mainstream gamers, weaned on Wind Waker or FFX or Halo, have very little sense about video games. They subscribe to the hype, wag their tails over realism, and can't really think outside the confines of their "gaming ideology."

Though, I can't imagine that so many people never played older games. Maybe mainstream gamers have just forgotten them.