I know it's really hard for most to imagine a time without video games but they really only became a "thing" in the last 30 years, unless you were one of those nerdy types with access to a MIT Supercomputer, you didn't know what a video game was in the 70's. It's such a young fledgling medium and while there are definitely older people who play video games, most of the audience for games are those who grew up with them. I've no ready access to statistics but I would call it a safe bet that 1% or less of all gamers are age 60 or older. This is something we don't consider much. While we have many gamers now in their 30s and 40s, the older the age group the less we see people playing games. A lot of that could be that back in the early days go gaming it was seen as just another toy for kids, a fad that you outgrow, but we've seen how it's become a mainstream entertainment industry on par with Film, TV, and Music and is essentially ageless, yet for the older generation it still tends to be something that isn't even on their radar.
All of this of course is going to change, like it or not, many of you will one day become OLD. Many of us gamers will one day be sitting in our nursing homes delightfully enjoying our golden years playing all the games we missed out on. You'll see LAN Parties held alongside Knitting Circles.
This will have a rather interesting impact on our world as a whole too. Think about how big a thing the Baby Boomers were, they went through the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, recession, and now they are the movers and shakers of the world. For gamers much of our generation has been marked so far by an applied science revolution of rapidly advancing technology. Our time will come in the decades to follow though where you will see kids raised on Poke'mon and Super Mario Bros. rise up to become influential figures in society and video games as a culture become so tightly integrated with our culture as all other forms of media are.
I doubt a little case of arthritis will keep most gamers from putting down the controller as they age. I'm curious though to see other people's thoughts on what the future, not so much of gaming, but of GAMERs looks like. It's something we've never seen before, an entire generation of old people who grew up playing video games. How do you think such a future will look like?
All of this of course is going to change, like it or not, many of you will one day become OLD. Many of us gamers will one day be sitting in our nursing homes delightfully enjoying our golden years playing all the games we missed out on. You'll see LAN Parties held alongside Knitting Circles.
This will have a rather interesting impact on our world as a whole too. Think about how big a thing the Baby Boomers were, they went through the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, recession, and now they are the movers and shakers of the world. For gamers much of our generation has been marked so far by an applied science revolution of rapidly advancing technology. Our time will come in the decades to follow though where you will see kids raised on Poke'mon and Super Mario Bros. rise up to become influential figures in society and video games as a culture become so tightly integrated with our culture as all other forms of media are.
I doubt a little case of arthritis will keep most gamers from putting down the controller as they age. I'm curious though to see other people's thoughts on what the future, not so much of gaming, but of GAMERs looks like. It's something we've never seen before, an entire generation of old people who grew up playing video games. How do you think such a future will look like?