Middle-Aged Gamers
- Thread starter Mark J Kline
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*ahem* Gentlemen?
I turn 41 in a fortnight.
I've played well enough to be banned from a server for "Cheating".
My twitch skills may be on the decline, but I'm much sneakier.
I turn 41 in a fortnight.
I've played well enough to be banned from a server for "Cheating".
My twitch skills may be on the decline, but I'm much sneakier.
Currently middle aged people never were "the noobs". As if video games wrre just invented 5 years ago.
I'm 34 and I grew up with the NES. People in my age group aren't just now discovering games, jumping on a bandwagon or clinging to our youth. We are the reason video games are as big as they are today.
I'm 34 and I grew up with the NES. People in my age group aren't just now discovering games, jumping on a bandwagon or clinging to our youth. We are the reason video games are as big as they are today.
Is marketing the reason we feel the need to categorize everyone nowadays? Where's the need to know what older gamers play come from? Can't we just accept that people play the kind of game they enjoy, no matter their age, race, gender or economic status? Why do we have to have games for old people, young people, adolescent male, young adult female? Perhaps I'm a little touchy on this subject since I play the kind of games I'm not supposed to play and am tired of being considered a freak or anomoly. I can see differentiating games based on sexual or violent content for little kids, but once a person reaches adulthood I'm assuming they play whatever they consider fun.
I think that's more a gender issue there. Female gamers in our generation (also 38 here) who've been at it since they were nippers are far less common than male gamers who've been at it since they were anklebiters... especially as you enjoy genres usually considered the domain of grognards and grumpy curmudgeons.nikki191 said:
First off, if you are in your forties, then you are young enough to not be intimidated by technology, and if you are older, and reading this, then you are not intimidated either.
My first console had two knobs and it was called Pong. Then the Atari 2600, C-64, SNES, PC, and Xbox 360.
I'm an avid gamer at 44, and plan to keep on gaming.
I'm all for casual games, motion control, mobile gaming, and Facebook games. Anything that expands the ranks of the demographic we can call "gamers" is good. For me, though, I need a trigger and ammo. Rage is my next big game. I'm playing a lot of Borderlands, Fallout: New Vegas, Team Fortress, and Civ 5 these days.
I also like to fall back on classics like Alpha Centauri, Dungeon Keeper, and Doom.
I own a 360, and I prefer it for sports, racing, and GTA style third person play. I have a powerhouse PC where 100% of my First Person Shooter action happens, as well turn based and real time strategy gaming.
Sadly, MS Word and Excel get a lot of "play" too... But that's a function of getting older I guess
My first console had two knobs and it was called Pong. Then the Atari 2600, C-64, SNES, PC, and Xbox 360.
I'm an avid gamer at 44, and plan to keep on gaming.
I'm all for casual games, motion control, mobile gaming, and Facebook games. Anything that expands the ranks of the demographic we can call "gamers" is good. For me, though, I need a trigger and ammo. Rage is my next big game. I'm playing a lot of Borderlands, Fallout: New Vegas, Team Fortress, and Civ 5 these days.
I also like to fall back on classics like Alpha Centauri, Dungeon Keeper, and Doom.
I own a 360, and I prefer it for sports, racing, and GTA style third person play. I have a powerhouse PC where 100% of my First Person Shooter action happens, as well turn based and real time strategy gaming.
Sadly, MS Word and Excel get a lot of "play" too... But that's a function of getting older I guess
I sometimes feel like there's already a divide between me and younger gamers. In fact I know there is. I can't define its boundaries but attitudes definitely differ between people who started playing games in this generation or the last, from what I can see, and those who started playing a long time ago. I started with the Sega Mega Drive and at the tender age of 20 I already feel like a lot of the juvenile "maturity" in games today is piling up.
But I won't let that get to me and, having been gaming for 15 years, I intend to stick with my hobby well into my middle-age.
But I won't let that get to me and, having been gaming for 15 years, I intend to stick with my hobby well into my middle-age.
I have to agree with many of the posters, Dr. Kline's entry really misses the mark. Saying we middle aged gamers didn't grow up with computers and therefore will be uncomfortable with them. That we are now just finding games? What is that? I'm 39. Which is middle-aged. The average age is not 100, so 50 is not middle aged. And the people who are middle aged now, they are the first generation to grow up with personal computers and with arcade video games and home consoles. This isn't new to us. This is what we grew up with.
His post that we old-timers will like Angry Birds and Solitaire because it isn't too hard for us to learn? What is that? We are the gaming generation and we are playing all sorts of games.
Do we middle aged gamers have issues specific to our age? Yes...but Klein wasn't really able to address them. Sure he mentioned lessening of twich reflexes, but that is not that big of a deal. I think the main thing that middle aged gamers have to deal with is that despite the fact that the average age of a gamer is 37, it still has the perception of being a kid's game. Middle aged male gamers are portrayed as being man-children who have stunted growth and not proper romantic choices regularly by the media. I've seen it in Cosmo, I've seen in on TV. Over and over, women are given love advice such as: "Ladies, if your man plays video games, dump him!" These sets of advice set up the idea 1) that women don't play video games (they do), and 2) video gaming is something you grow out of and there is something pathological about being an adult gamer.
Another issue for adult gamers is getting time to play. Luckily I'm single and don't have kids, so my free time is my own...well, to be honest my free time belongs to a book I'm writing so I can get tenure...but I do try to get in gaming when I can. Though sometimes I only get to play once every 2-3 weeks. My friends with kids have even less time to play. Add on top of that they like to play mature games, and can't do that when the kids are awake. The time crunch is big issue for the middle aged gamers.
So, stigma and time, are two big middle aged specific issues I'd say...not the utter inability for Klein's 40 year old to understand the internet.
As a side note. While I'm a heavy-ish gamer who loves my 360, I don't play on Live. When I am playing on Live I am only playing with my other 40 year old friends. When I was playing WoW very heavily, I ended up being in guilds with people who were also my age. So...while I am a gamer and know lots and lots of gamers, I interact very rarely with younger gamers. As a matter of fact it sort of shocked me how young the Escapist demographic has become. I don't think it's a bad thing...I just sort of thought younger folks weren't as into gaming somehow.
His post that we old-timers will like Angry Birds and Solitaire because it isn't too hard for us to learn? What is that? We are the gaming generation and we are playing all sorts of games.
Do we middle aged gamers have issues specific to our age? Yes...but Klein wasn't really able to address them. Sure he mentioned lessening of twich reflexes, but that is not that big of a deal. I think the main thing that middle aged gamers have to deal with is that despite the fact that the average age of a gamer is 37, it still has the perception of being a kid's game. Middle aged male gamers are portrayed as being man-children who have stunted growth and not proper romantic choices regularly by the media. I've seen it in Cosmo, I've seen in on TV. Over and over, women are given love advice such as: "Ladies, if your man plays video games, dump him!" These sets of advice set up the idea 1) that women don't play video games (they do), and 2) video gaming is something you grow out of and there is something pathological about being an adult gamer.
Another issue for adult gamers is getting time to play. Luckily I'm single and don't have kids, so my free time is my own...well, to be honest my free time belongs to a book I'm writing so I can get tenure...but I do try to get in gaming when I can. Though sometimes I only get to play once every 2-3 weeks. My friends with kids have even less time to play. Add on top of that they like to play mature games, and can't do that when the kids are awake. The time crunch is big issue for the middle aged gamers.
So, stigma and time, are two big middle aged specific issues I'd say...not the utter inability for Klein's 40 year old to understand the internet.
As a side note. While I'm a heavy-ish gamer who loves my 360, I don't play on Live. When I am playing on Live I am only playing with my other 40 year old friends. When I was playing WoW very heavily, I ended up being in guilds with people who were also my age. So...while I am a gamer and know lots and lots of gamers, I interact very rarely with younger gamers. As a matter of fact it sort of shocked me how young the Escapist demographic has become. I don't think it's a bad thing...I just sort of thought younger folks weren't as into gaming somehow.
I'm in my mid-20s and find my ass getting kicked by older players a lot in competitive multiplayer games. Whether this is because they have trained their reflexes to be faster at the game or have greater natural talent than I, or just have superb decision-making skills based on experience--I'm not sure.
I've asked parties in lobbies and across boards how old they are and it's always older than I would think. If it's a team-based game, you will find age groups tend to flock together, with the tweens staying in pairs of 2-5 while the highschoolers and people my age have a rough circle of about 7 to 10. Players age 28 or older tend to either play alone or travel in giant packs like Tusken Raiders, annihilating enemy teams with almost military precision and 10 to 16 or more friends.
That isn't to say there aren't child prodigies that couldn't sweep a bunch of adults, but the rule of thumb is that if you're going up against greyhairs, prepare to be knocked around the block.
I've asked parties in lobbies and across boards how old they are and it's always older than I would think. If it's a team-based game, you will find age groups tend to flock together, with the tweens staying in pairs of 2-5 while the highschoolers and people my age have a rough circle of about 7 to 10. Players age 28 or older tend to either play alone or travel in giant packs like Tusken Raiders, annihilating enemy teams with almost military precision and 10 to 16 or more friends.
That isn't to say there aren't child prodigies that couldn't sweep a bunch of adults, but the rule of thumb is that if you're going up against greyhairs, prepare to be knocked around the block.
I hope the young whippersnappers of the Escapist don't start a thread telling everyone to go listen to the cranky old people ***** in this thread. Anyway, who says we don't know the internet? Baby, I was there when Al Gore invented the damn thing! (I also know what a DARPA is).
I'm turning 37 in october, and I've been gaming since I was 6.
Also, I have a youtube channel full of beastly gameplay footage.
My APM has dropped, though .. from 350 down to 290 .. but thankfully, I'm not playing Terran in Broodwar anymore.
You only need about 80 APM in SC2 to be really good.
Also, I have a youtube channel full of beastly gameplay footage.
My APM has dropped, though .. from 350 down to 290 .. but thankfully, I'm not playing Terran in Broodwar anymore.
You only need about 80 APM in SC2 to be really good.
I'm 19 so i'm kinda in the middle of what people call the "young" and the "old" gamers.
Personally i'd rather play with people who are more experienced. I've never thought someone who was older than me was weird for gaming. I think that awesome, and i kinda wish my own dad would have paid any attention to video games.
Just look at this guy A little off-putting, but still great.
Personally i'd rather play with people who are more experienced. I've never thought someone who was older than me was weird for gaming. I think that awesome, and i kinda wish my own dad would have paid any attention to video games.
Just look at this guy A little off-putting, but still great.
Well, my dad is about 50 and he's the one that introduced me to gaming. Hell, he used to make Doom maps for fun.
34 here almost 35, and have to say that since I got my 48k Sinclair spectrum eons ago, Google it if you don´t know what it is , I almost don't care about anything more then games, I say almost .
But still playing a average 3 or 4 hours, or more per day, I still have time to work and even got a girlfriend, and all that social stuff they say you don´t have because you play to much games!!!
And you know what, I might not be more patience or more friendly then when I was younger, but i still love games like it was the first day, and ever will If possible.
But the major difference I get now is that, at least for me, is now harder now to focus heavy in one game,that was 5 or 6 years ago.
The rest is the same ,but I am almost exclusively PC gamer only got the consoles until PlayStation 2 and psp never got any after that.
, I almost don't care about anything more then games, I say almost .But still playing a average 3 or 4 hours, or more
per day, I still have time to work and even got a girlfriend, and all that social stuff they say you don´t have because you play to much games!!!And you know what, I might not be more patience or more friendly then when I was younger, but i still love games like it was the first day, and ever will If possible.
But the major difference I get now is that, at least for me, is now harder now to focus heavy in one game,that was 5 or 6 years ago.
The rest is the same ,but I am almost exclusively PC gamer only got the consoles until PlayStation 2 and psp never got any after that.
Oh, I want to add one thing. You know what is great about being an adult gamer? I can afford to buy what I want.
I remember being a kid, going to the gaming store and gazing lovingly at all the table-top RPG books there...and not being able to afford any. Just one or two, here and there. I remember being an undergrad college student and not being able to afford a computer or console of my own. I remember being a grad student and by then I was making enough to have a computer and a console and to be able to afford games...but I still mostly bought used games and only a few major new games. And now that I have an actual job? If I want to buy Deus Ex:HR? I can. It is awesome.
I remember being a kid, going to the gaming store and gazing lovingly at all the table-top RPG books there...and not being able to afford any. Just one or two, here and there. I remember being an undergrad college student and not being able to afford a computer or console of my own. I remember being a grad student and by then I was making enough to have a computer and a console and to be able to afford games...but I still mostly bought used games and only a few major new games. And now that I have an actual job? If I want to buy Deus Ex:HR? I can. It is awesome.
