I grew up hearing all the talking heads (media), religious groups and parents strongly criticizing video games. You've, probably, heard some of this. For example, video games involving any type of violence causing people to become more violent, etc. As far as I know, the academic community has failed to produce any negative relationship between video games and real life.
At the age of 8 my son began playing Elden Ring with me. We were both new to Souls-like games. I, quickly, became disheartened by the difficulty of Elden Ring and stopped playing altogether. On the other hand, my son continued to play Elden Ring. He had several meltdowns, over the next two years, trying so desperately to advance in this game. One of his most recent meltdowns was so traumatic for him, that he smashed the PS5 controller into our brand new TV screen which caused a square inch of it to be irreparably damaged. He was punished severely for doing this.
Two weeks later, he continued his quest to overcome Elden Ring. I remember hearing him say to himself, his mother and brother "I am not going to give up until I beat this game".
Three weeks, and many more meltdowns later, my 10 year old son beat Elden Ring. I remember hearing him scream "YES! YES! FINALLY!".
I ran into the room and found him sobbing with tears of joy. I hugged and congratulated him. I ran outside to tell his older brother and he ran in to congratulate him. His mother was overjoyed with his accomplishment.
For someone so young to persevere, spending over 300 hours, trying to overcome a tough game like Elden Ring is a huge accomplishment.
I am so proud of my son to have learned such a valuable lesson, on his own, at such a young age.
That's incredible. Your son has far, far, more patience than I ever did. I still haven't managed to clock most of the games I grew up with, such as Dangerous Dave, Prince of Persia 1 & 2, Wolf3D, Doom 1 & 2, Crystal Caves, Aladdin, Lion King, Jazz Jackrabbit, Mario (NES), Pokemon Red (GBA), Crash Bandicoot (PS1)...
Every now and then I try to clock one of those old games, but then I get stuck and/or lose interest, and move on to something else. Even among recent games, I spent over 400 hours playing BotW and only managed to do two of the divine beasts. I also have over 200 hours in TotK and still haven't gotten to the first major spirit quest. Similarly, got several hundreds of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, but never actually completed any of those games.
I think the only game that I recall beating would be the Bio Menace trilogy - which I finally managed to complete as an adult, and that too thanks to DOSBox's save states. Oh, and Diablo II too, it someone had the perfect mix of action + story + game length, to keep me interested till the end.
Honestly I've no idea how people manage to stick to one thing for so long and see it thru till the end, without losing interest or getting distracted by something else.