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Donating a gaming PC, how can I let them try my games in a safe way? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey guys,

so I posted here a few weeks ago, with the idea of donating a gaming PC to a nursing home. I talked to someone in charge there today, this might actually happen.

Thing is, to try this out I would probably have to supply the software (Microsoft Flight Simulator being the most important now.)

As I understand it, you can only use the Flight Simulator with a Microsoft account. If I let them use my own account, that would mean a PC with my logged in account would be standing around there in the open, for anyone to access.

Does anyone have any idea how to approach this in a safe manner? I wish I could just buy a physical copy and let them have it for a while, before they buy their own. But even those need a connected Microsoft account nowadays, it seems.

Was also thinking of buying a used Xbox Series S (this might become the long term solution anyway), but same issue with the account, I believe.

(Man, modern gaming keeps finding ways to be annoying sometimes.)

P.S. If you have great game recommendations for octogenarians, bring them on!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I know someone up there in years that enjoyed the Far Cry series. Didn't really expect that. shrug

More generally I think it'll commonly be something that relates to their interests when they were younger. Someone that retired 20 years ago from aerospace engineering might actually really enjoy Kerbal Space Program or even Outer Wilds, a former industrial foreman might like Factorio, for a retired military historian, bring on that Total War.

I can see games like Big Game Hunter and Truck Simulator being more broadly popular with certain segments. Some sports games maybe, like a tennis game or some golf thing maybe, I don't know much about those. A simpler, realism-leaning racing game maybe. Flight simulator works great here.

The main thing is I'd avoid games with lots of layers of game design and abstraction. It should do what it says on the tin, and there shouldn't be many steps or abstract mechanics between them and getting into the meat of the game and the core gameplay loop.

Minimal menus is probably a good idea. Like, a Paradox Interactive game would probably be a poor choice, just because they have so much you need to learn to become a proficient player. Fine text can be hard to read too, so menus and tooltips and complex status interfaces are usually gonna be pretty meh for most people. Can't play Starcraft if you have to squint and lean in every time you want to know how many minerals you have.

Want that learning curve to just get into the initial gameplay to be pretty gentle overall. The experience should be fairly intuitive to real life, and real life doesn't have that many menus and buttons. Usually, depending on their former career I guess.

Kudos for doing this btw.

(oh, and sorry I couldn't answer your core question)