I think the age thing is relevant, but more as "everyone has a few early experiences they anchor and way future experiences against". I'll always compare games to pirates, UO, EQ, privateer, d2 and qwctf because they were my seminal games in various categories. Other people will have other games they measure against, whether that be wow, Starcraft, cs, myth, monkey island, syndicate, fallout or whatever you first were captured by.