Poll: Giving up gaming because you're old

[Carnagath]

Age has got nothing to do with quitting gaming, it's the extra responsibilities that come with age that leave less time for it. It all depends on the person too. I, for example, in order to sit down and play a videogame, need to be: 1) rested 2) calm. If I have a ton of stressful shit on my mind and am exhausted, I can't play videogames. I haven't had this problem too often yet, because I'm still studying, but once I start working as a lawyer full time I can definitely see myself playing less, since the hours are very long and it is an extremely stressful job.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

I for one intend to game until my hands are too arthritic. By which time I hope we can control games with the power of our minds. Which may suck if I'm senile.

Much laughs were had at this : )

The mention of mind control games brought up one of the main reasons for me to NEVER QUIT. Of course I'm not psychic, but I certainly don't plan to quit playing just as much as I have no intention of ignoring the movie theater one day (or the holographic retina film beaming booths. Have a 2 hour memory that you saw a movie in mere seconds!).

Ever since I was little, and I mean very little, I've loved the progress of technology, particularly with video game consoles. I've always enjoyed seeing the sweeping changes to the controller, storage media, graphics & sound, and Internet capabilities (not so much now). That's why I love the Wii, for all its faults. It was trying something incredibly new, pushing uncharted territory. And there is plenty of games that make it awesome.

I also have a separate collection of games that are "Do NOT ever sell, must save for future children". I fully intend on sharing this hobby with my kids, and while that might include "NewER Super Mario Brothers Wii X 7", I hope to one day have them experience Rez, Chrono Trigger, Dark Souls, and other games from that collection. Essentially the spokesperson of our generation of gaming to the kids and their friends.

It might be overly optimistic, but over the years its been a true love of mine, and means much more to me than the fun involved. I don't know why I'd rip a major passion out of my life.

 

[TehCookie]

I'll never quit gaming. I may game less because I have less time or because I only like the best after playing so many average titles but I'd still play some. Not to mention both of my parents are gamers, and have been for a long time so I don't see it strange or that old people should give it up.

 

[Paladin2905]

Hell no. My 90+ year old grandparents still play a game of Uno every night; roughly analogous to gaming in our generations. While I may no longer be playing fast-paced shooters, I really never see myself giving up turn based strategy games or their equivalent. People do what they've come to enjoy, and adapt their past times to accommodate, not the other way around. Case in point: people who like golf but who get fat or old, use golf carts. The only people I've seen quit golf do so because of a physical restriction like a dead shoulder. I don't see my mouse hand falling off anytime.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

So what do you think, will you give up video games and take up lawn bowls and knitting when you start getting grey hair?

I picked the hearing aid option, because I assume that one is the option that indicates "I am already old and still a gamer".

I'm not sure if 33 counts as old, but whatever.

Anyway, I want to share my love of gaming with my kid. To share that with my kid, I have to keep gaming myself. And anyway, why would I want to stop?

 

[Jason Rayes]

once I start working as a lawyer full time I can definitely see myself playing less, since the hours are very long and it is an extremely stressful job.

But I doubt all of that will be true when you are 70 or 80, which is what my friend was referring to.

Ever since I was little, and I mean very little, I've loved the progress of technology, particularly with video game consoles.

This is much the same for me, its as much an interest in the technology as what it produces. The two are linked. I was in my early teens when PC's first started becoming available for the home rather than science labs somewhere, my first computer was a commodore 64 and my friends thought it was awesome that I had one. Now virtually every home has a computer. My first console was an Atari 2600, If I could go back in time and show me then what consoles today can do, I'd have given myself a heart attack (Not to mention causing a paradox that would destroy time and space). I remember gathering around at a friends on the weekend, he was the only person I knew with a modem, a 2400 baud device that was state of the art at the time. We would spend a good 20 minutes hooking up to a crappy BBS and think it was awesome, at this stage just getting this far didn't so much require a manual as a grimoire. Now the internet is so user-friendly my grandmother uses it.

Now I've made myself FEEL old, where's my walking frame?

 

[Kristian Fischer]

The day I give up gaming is the day I BECOME old.

 

[Jason Rayes]

The day I give up gaming is the day I BECOME old.

You're only as old as the controller you feel

 

[Frankster]

Oh plz i was playing puzzle bobble with my grandma ^^
She was in her 80s and certainly anything but boring, she played some videogames with me (usually puzzle games), painted wonderful paintings, played various gambling games with me (and taught me a few) and heck i even smoked some weed with her once So yeh age certainly doesnt make you less fun.

Meh i really miss my grandma now

 

[nyarlathotepsama]

Give up gaming when I get old? Nah. Give up gaming because games become awful in the future? More likely.

I have a pretty full social life, a very steady boyfriend and a demanding job yet I still find time to game every day. It is my version of most folks' sports...I loath sports. To me when I get home from the office I pull my chair up to either the TV or the Computer depending on my mood and play for a few hours.

I'm 31, a work a mentally demanding job and go out almost every night. I hope when I get older I drop one or more of these things to garden rather than gaming...

 

[trooper6]

I'm 40 and I game more than I did when I was 10...because you know, I have money now and can afford to buy games. I'd don't see myself ever stopping gaming in the same way I don't see myself stopping reading or watching TV or movies.

Gaming is an entertainment medium of art...why would I stop doing that?

 

[skintrade]

Hell no, gaming since 79, i've been gaming more years than anything else. I may not put the hours in, or buy as many new games as i used to due to real life and financial ties, but the only way i'll stop gaming is when i actually am unable to do so.

 

[Something Amyss]

No, but also GIT AWF MAH LAWN!

I'm a far more casual gamer than I was, but I love games. Games games games.

 

[GigaHz]

I'm not giving up gaming, but I am starting to cling to certain kinds of games more.

Frankly, I get more stimulation out of a game of chess than the craziest, over-the-top first person shooter. That and games haven't changed a lot in a 10 year span. They are basically the same versions of the games we played a generation ago with prettier graphics and tighter mechanics. Eventually, the appeal starts to wane and you want to move onto something different. Whether that's a different kind of gaming or 'growing up' depends on the person.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

37, still enjoy gaming as much as I did when I was 10. Maybe more, even.

I suppose there's always a possibility that could change, and with age comes responsibility that can eat away at your ability to indulge the way you can when you're younger, but I've yet to experience some age-based impulse to stop enjoying myself and go get my CBA, or start collecting neckties.

 

[SodaDew]

I won't completely, but I don't play video games nearly as much as I did 5 years ago.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Your friend is an idiot, at least on this one point. I'm going to be 42 this month (and I want to say how nice it is to see all you other old bastards hanging around; I feel less like an oddity now), and I just last week finished Sleeping Dogs on my XBox 360.

 

[CoL0sS]

Well after I've hit my 20s I kinda started enjoying games less and less even though I play them on daily basis. I think it has less to do with me being tired of gaming and more with most recent games not "hitting that spot" for me. Or maybe it's just a simple overload and some time away would help me rediscover my passion for them.

 

[Spuddicus]

There is no magic switch that turns off when you grow old. The reason there are so few senior games right now is because games weren't around when they grew up, in 10-20 years, that could easily be very different. As a 21 year old gamer, with parents who game, I'm pretty confident that whether you game as an adult or not depends solely on what interests you, not your physical age. It's quite possible that one may grow older and decide that gaming just isn't something they want to sink time into, but correlation doesn't imply causation.

 

[mikey7339]

I'll be 30 this winter and I don't see giving it up. I still play games almost every day. However I have noticed that almost no game is really holding my attention any more. The only game I've loved and played religiously which has come out in the past 5 years has been Day Z. All other games get old within 2 weeks. Borderlands 2 is the latest victim of this. Fun, but not fun enough to motivate me to play it after a few days.