This Grandpa Has Probably Beaten More Games Than You
Video games have a way of reaching all kinds of audiences, young and old. A video from the South China Morning Post has introduced gamers to Yang Binglin, an 86-year-old grandfather who devotes a good amount of his daily routine to mastering the art of gaming. Considering the fact that he's beaten 300 video games in the last 20 years, he's off to a pretty great start.
As Yang explains in the video, "I'm not a professional gamer, I'm just a fan. And I keep on doing what I like. I've been following this daily routine for more than 20 years ... I play video games every afternoon." Before launching into his afternoon (which is usually taken up by around 3 hours of gaming), Yang typically practices ping-pong during the morning hours. In other words, he's a well-rounded gamer.
The video also offers a brief glimpse at Yang's impressive collection of PS4 games, which includes horror titles like The Last of Us 2 and Resident Evil 7, as well as plenty of action games, including Ghost of Tsushima and Cyberpunk 2077. According to Yang, his genre of choice is horror, but it seems like he's down to play pretty much anything. That may be why he's already gained a significant following on Chinese social media sites, where his granddaughter has uploaded videos of his gameplay.
Yang has also written many of his own strategy guides by hand, reminding himself where to go and what to do in some of his favorite games. These are apparently necessary, because he refuses to use outside strategy guides, preferring to figure everything out for himself. He explained to South China Morning Post that he also writes reviews of the games he completes, which can turn out to be "quite long."
While Yang loves his hobby and hopes to continue it for quite a long time, he does understand that it can be unhealthy to overdo it. Yang explained, "It is something that I enjoy very much. I hope that the young players can manage their time while playing. You can spend one or two hours on it, but not the whole day ... No matter how hard the game is, we can always pause and get back to it later, right?"
Yang Binglin joins the likes of Skyrim Grandma and the Call of Duty-crushing TacticalGramma, both of whom are older gamers who have displayed exceptional skills and passion for the medium. Since the video from SCMP was posted, Yang has gained some new fans. One Redditor excitedly referred to him as a "legend," while one Twitter user remarked that many gamers will hopefully grow up to be just like Yang.