26 years in, today I watched my dad finally play Minecraft

26 years ago, in 1997, my dad brought home the family's first pc and a dial up subscription. After that, it catapulted me into a whole world of gaming and computing. I grew up a PC kid through thick and thin, and im still enjoying it to this day, and over those years my dad has always supported my computing needs. But in those 26 years, he has never really played a game on the PC himself. <br><br>I say 26 years because I was born in 1997 and am 26 now (born in May, so im 3 months away from being 27). Which means my dad has had a pc in the house the whole time I've been alive, and he has never played a game on it. Everything he knows about computing and gaming consoles has been through my friendship with him. <br><br>No matter what I showed him over the years, he just didn't seem to be interested, no matter how much I tried to convince him, and I've always just been ok with that.<br><br>Back in 2011 (when Minecraft was still in beta), I tried to get him to play Minecraft, and today I finally got him to load the game and play it!<br><br>The reason Im here writing this post is because it has never felt like a better time than now to finally start encouraging him to play PC games, because I think the timing is perfect, and I'd like your thoughts if you've been in this situation before.<br><br>Why I think the timing is perfect: Everything he has learned about computing through watching me has finally put him in a position where he can say to himself: "Oh, I know what the mouse is for. I know what the keyboard is for. I know what settings and options are in a game. I know how to use a web browser to purchase a game and login to an account in order to start playing it."<br><br>Over the years, because gaming has pretty much been my whole life, I've had the chance to be the "tech support guy" for my family and their online services, and with the times we're living in today where everyone does practically everything online, my dad has become a super proficient PC user, and I think he now has the confidence to, and is ready to, start playing games!<br><br>Why Minecraft: I tried to get him to play Minecraft back in 2011, and it's the closest I've ever gotten him to playing any sort of game on the computer. Back then he didn't know how to use a mouse and keyboard, so he asked me to show him what a right click does, and what these random keys do on the keyboard. But it didn't last any longer than 5 minutes. Why I tried again today is because Minecraft is just about the easiest PC game ever to pick up (looking at you Skyrim), and the best part about Minecraft is you can just do whatever you want to! Which makes it perfect for a first time player. Also, back in 2011 Minecraft was in beta, and is a lot different to what it is now, so I don't even think he recognised it at first.<br><br>What happened today: Today I was doing some work on his PC to make it run faster. I upgraded the RAM and cpu, and cleaned out his old fans and re-pasted some heatsinks, and once it was all back together and cleaned up I wanted to make sure it all worked properly, so I loaded up Minecraft (my go to game for these types of things), and showed him the game and a few of the settings and how to interact with the menu, and once I did that, he asked me to show him what you have to do in the game. I asked him if he wanted to play it for a bit, and he replied "yeah sure, why not". And I'm not joking when I say this, he played for about an hour straight! So cool! He was chopping trees and collecting drops, and going into a cave to fight a zombie and eating food, and then thinking im cool enough to fight a skeleton, lol.<br><br>This was just a pretty cool experience for me. I've always been a PC gamer and have spent countless hours on the PC with my friends and online communities, and so to actually have my dad enter the same space I have been in for years is a pretty cool thing. It was fun to watch him figure everything out and to just have a bit of a laugh about it, and I hope he keeps playing! But I'm thinking about how im going to get him to play more games because I know he will be a gamer at heart once he starts. Which leads me to my questions for you all:<br><br>Have any of you ever been in this situation?<br>If so, how did you approach it?<br>Do you have any tips or advice?<br>What games do you think would be great for a first time PC player?<br><br>If you have any good stories about gaming with your parents, feel free to share those too.<br><br>Tl;Dr: Dad finally played Minecraft on the computer after watching me play PC games for 26 years. I'm looking for tips and advice on how to get him to be a full time gamer!<br><br>Edit: Wow guys, this post got a lot more traction than i anticipated. For those of you leaving your favourite games and lists of games, I will be writing them all out into a list and putting them in an order from easy to hard. I will also be incorporating some of the tips and advice you are giving me into it. This wil be the order: (1.) Tier 1: Easy to pick up games. (2.) Tier 2: First time pc games. (3.) Tier 3: Tier 1 and 2 games but more complex. (4.) Tier 4: PC games for new players. (5.) Tier 5: PC games you can't go wrong with. Then I will have a list for PC game genres. This is going to be a lot of fun :)