Gamers 50-plus are a growing force in the tech market
aarp.org
aarp.org
I'm in a small gaming clan which plays a (dated) first-person shooter, and our oldest player is in his late 50s. I also know a lot of older people who play mobile games, or online poker, or Wordle. The three groups behave in radically different ways, and trying to understand their consumption is pointless without further segmentation. If you target the mobile gamers with ads about gaming mice they're not going to buy them, our 50-something has approximately zero chance of clicking on an ad for Clash of Clans, and the Wordle players would mostly be insulted by ads for online poker.
Same sort of problem as a survey of "readers" has, where fiction and non-fiction are so different that overall stats are misleading.
Edit: To expand on what I mean by community-oriented, here's a genealogy of the different outfits (equivalent of a clan/guild) on one of the Planetside 2 servers: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/887173952080863253/91.... Once you're used to the game mechanics you slowly get drawn into the metagame of complementary or conflicting personalities, outfit history, schisms, cooperation, drama, competitive play, leadership, and so on.
[1] https://www.splashdamage.com/games/wolfenstein-enemy-territo... [2] https://www.etlegacy.com/
But, that's kinda it, I doubt there are ever more than 1k people online at a time. But those same people have millions of XP (I actually have a PR open on the client ATM to abbreviate the XP in the scoreboard, which I think we finally need after 20 years lol)
If you play, make sure you use the etlegacy client, it is backwards compatible with many fixes/improvements.
It is true that lots of indie games find success with smaller budgets. But I suspect that lots of indie developers are not 50+ years old. Game development is mostly a craft, and unsurprisingly indie game developers prefer to work on projects similar to what they themselves enjoy.
The 50+ years old video game market is tiny
To me it seems like a large enough market to target. Candy crush has nailed the target group (Women 35+) and is making lots of money.
Perhaps the issue is just segmenting by age vs device/game type
It's become more and more strange to me that the gaming market
isn't segmented by what they play.
ColecoVision
I don’t know if you remember, but before the cartridge consoles, we had a shit ton of black and white PONG consoles… all with the same 5 games. I think they all used the same chip but changed the packaging and controllers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AY-3-8500
http://www.pong-story.com/gi.htm
It was an interesting era in chip design.
Yeah, I had a ZX Spectrum when I was ten.
And I am an avid Path Of Exile player with Civilization thrown in between leagues and play Splendor with my brother over the Internet practically daily.
Completely fits.
I think the view of gamers are 20 years behind reality and uses outdated stereotypes. Just look at the comment in another thread that assumes 50-year olds play bridge, like being old means you are stuck in a 90s cliche of what older people do.
Why wouldn't we continue playing games? There may be a period in life where work and/or kids takes more of your gaming time, but once you get older you have more personal time that can be spent on gaming.
The average US gamer is currently 35 years old and increasing. 46% of American gamers are female.
Kinda depends on whether the "gamer" means "someone who occasionally plays games or "self identified as member of specific gamer culture". The word gamer can mean both.
Full disclosure: I am a woman who strongly refuses the title "gamer" and occasionally playing some games. For me, it means specific culture I decided I don't want to be member of.
This is why it's impossible for me to take seriously anyone who claims that a given medium is only for kids. Kids grow up, and adults who love a medium move it forwards into something adults can take seriously, thereby proving that anxiety over whether a medium is "too young" for you is fundamentally adolescent, and rooted in anxiety over your own maturity. Certain works can be too immature to satisfy an adult, but a given medium is infinitely malleable and can tell stories at any level.
Of course, this relates to the similarly pointless diatribes that refuse to distinguish between a medium, a genre, and a level of quality, and therefore insist that a given medium is only for works in a given genre with a given (assumed low) level of quality. I don't have time for a single second of that nonsense.
Actually, even before the 2600 there were complex mainframe and Unix games (for the very limited audiences that had access to these machines), but my point is that I can't really blame somebody in, say, 1978 seeing an Atari cartridge game and thinking it would never be something adults were interested in.
[0] modren reprint: https://bossfightbooks.com/products/breakout
Put a bunch of older guys in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn to go out machine hunting, I'm sure they would be all for it. Add a crafting/building component so that groups could build villages and what not (minecraft meets HZD meets Counter Strike) kind of environments, it would be much more fun that sitting around watching the TV right?
I don't think bridge is very popular with GenX. I could be wrong though.
Also, my grandmother who recently passed away at 96, spent hours and hours playing games like Candy Crush. She often passed out in front of her computer at 2am. Not that ‘casual’ imo. My mom does the same, feels like some kind of sick payback for being addicted to NES as a kid.
The role of loneliness and self-control in predicting problem gambling behaviour: https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/INFORMIT.8591559...
Social isolation and loneliness: the new geriatric giants: https://www.cfp.ca/content/66/3/176.full
So many of my favorite image creations could be fixed simply by being able to say "hey try redrawing the hand with 4 visible fingers this time" or "turn that frown upside down".
I asked in their support forums about this and a moderator (?) glibly told me "MJ is not Photoshop". Ok, and? Imagine if GPT-4 only allowed one-shot prompts and that is kinda what MJ feels like.
I expect we will get there soon, MJ needs a conversation mode soon or they will be beaten in the market by someone who does. I feel foolish for buying an annual subscription to MJ if they do not realize this... hopefully they're working on it.
Once I get something somewhat close to what I want I send it to img2img mode that accepts both an image and a prompt as inputs and refine it further from there.
Also: AARP commenting on over 50? /sighs/
Off topic: the old farts in the picture hold the controller like old farts. The default way for people my age to pick up a Playstation or Xbox controller is to have your trigger fingers nowhere near the R1, L1 buttons....
edit: spelling
EDIT. Mac support deprecated on LotR. :( And I only use my PC through Remote Desktop... maybe i'll give it a whirl anyways....
Now we're waiting on Ashes of Creation, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.
We just end up going back to LoTro a lot because its very casual friendly, the story/quest lines are awesome, its HUGE! (one of the largest maps second only to WoW and procedurally generated IIRC). Level cap is 140 now, so lots of stuff to do and see without having to 'end game grind'..Oh! and PVP in LoTro is called "monster play" - its literall the "freeps vs the creeps" - you can play as one of the "free peoples" (human,elf, etc) or as a "monster" - giant spider, wolf, orc, etc. You 'monster' characters actually have their own progression and skills and can be leveled like your 'regular' characters.
Anyway - I hope you can get it working! If it helps, it runs under proton/Steam on Linux too!
EVE Online is still alive. You could even play for free (alpha character), till you know if you would like to continue and hit the alpha characters' restrictions. But please be aware that EVE (well, still) does not have a learning curve but a learning cliff! ;)
It's bugged me for years that so many people don't see this. Photorealistic Candy Land is still just playing Candy Land, but so many people are driven by photorealism and eat it up.
Now I mostly play action RPGs, I'm currently playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. Nice game, although there are various aspects in which I am less than impressed.
Parent is right, the least thing I worry about are fps above 24, refresh rates, and insane difficulty levels. I play most games on Normal or Easy difficulties.
I can think of 4 reasons:
1. This game has been around for a long time and the players that stuck with it aged with it.
2. It was designed for an much worse Internet and as such more tolerant of lag and packet loss, resulting in a playstyle less dependent on 18yo reflexes.
3. Size and complexity. A wilingness to engage in systems that require time investment and experience often outside of the game is less skewed towards instant gratification that seems to have generational bias. Other examples of also older age skewed games in this respect are Eve and PoE.
4. Cost is often mentioned, but I think this is a minor factor as many other games that skew younger cost about as much to play (season passes) or substantially more (mobile rpg's). The cost presentation (montly subscription) does feel decidedly eldery biased.
I’m 39, and I picked up War Thunder again — from scratch - last November. I generally play for about four hours per day, after my wife and kids are asleep.
Most games lose me within the first 10 minutes. I don't know why but any game that tries to be "cinematic" or has complex controls just loses me immediately. I tried the Witcher but I just couldn't sit through all that dialog.
I understand that people want their games to be cinematic, but there should be a market for games where I can just jump in, have 30 minutes of fun by myself, and log off. I don't want to be immersed in another world. I don't want storytelling.
I just want to have an hour of fun.
If you like BotW you might like A Short Hike, if you like Diablo3 then Hammerwatch (released a year later) could be fun too, etc.
I haven't played a single AAA game since then. Only indies :)
Indies are on a roll, there's one for any genre and gameplay style.
I don't need a lot of graphical grunt to play Factorio, Rimworld, Vintage Story, Battletech, or the like. A lot of AAA games just don't appeal to me any more.
A few good single-player games I played that have the story unfold in the background while you play:
- Hotline Miami (fast action, only few cutscenes, nice retro style)
- Dysmantle (story unfolds mostly through objects in the world)
- Raft (survival game, story is completely told through objects in the game)
- Valheim (almost no cut-scenes, but gets a bit repetitive after a while)
I'm in a similar boat but I am 40.
My goto since about 6 to 7 years are roguelikes and fighting games. Those are very accommodating for gameplay-focused games that can be played in short bursts and they are very enjoyable for me at least.
For me, the cutoff point is any game that requires combinations of button presses. The Xbox controller already has a crazy number of buttons. Any game that requires me to e.g. press the left stick down while simultaneously pressing the shoulder button is just an instant no. I remember abandoning the latest Doom game for this reason - it was just too much.
> there should be a market for games where I can just jump in, have 30 minutes of fun by myself, and log off
I've been playing Spelunky 2 for most of the last year for precisely this reason. Randomly generated levels, runs that last less than 15 minutes (sometimes seconds!) and gameplay that's simple to pick up but which has considerable depth when you get into it.
Also, why in the MarsHell would you play a first person shooter with a controller ?!
I hate gaming sitting at a desk personally.
Also, I find this ridiculous and a symptom of bad pacing, but most "competitive" people seem to prefer to skip it entirely : takes only a few minutes with the help of a high level player.
EDIT : as an example, the current «season» (where you restart the whole accumulation game from scratch across all season characters) added an «altar» where you can sacrifice random items to get season-wide character boosts. I though I was going crazy not finding the altar at the described & screenshotted location... it's because it's NOT available in story mode – only in the adventure-(the whole world starts open to you)-mode ! Nobody even thought to point that out : not in the (quite long) official season description, not in the guides that players made !!
If you like puzzles, you might like Patrick's Parabox (sic), Baba is You. If you like strategy games, try Into the Breach. Mini Metro and Mini Motorways give you a hyper-minimalistic take on the city-building genre. All of these are eminently playable in half-hour slices.
If you're willing to have your mind changed about storytelling, try Return of the Obra Dinn or Hades, or maybe Subnautica.
Are you me?
PS: consider trying Rocket League.
It's a castlevania style rogue game, I can turn it on, play for 30-60 mins and turn it off again.
SImple controls, hard, a bit different each time, fun.
That is issue with all witchers imo. I once wanted to play them, but literally after an hour of boring cut scenes I rage quitted.
So my current favourite games are 2-4 hour long that tells a good story. Eg Journey, tale of two brothers, slay the princess, Stanley's parable...
I tend to prefer games with story (and like puzzles so I guess I fit that oldie category), but play Mario Kart, Just Dance etc. regularly with one of my children, and I still play around creating retro 8-bit style arcade and adventure games too.
I find gaming and coding to be a way to unwind, my other half works late sometimes and I prefer it to being stuck in front of a television, but I'll take social time over it anytime. Somehow I still find time for reading and working on writing a new novel too.
I don't like to put too much time into gaming these days, I have bursts but then take many months off. OTOH its better than reading the news or pointless or rage-inducing comments on social media, or even here at times. Since I can control the gaming experience I can make it pretty much autopilot so I don't have to worry about blood pressure spikes.
Not to be a downer but I wouldn't exactly count playing solitare or Candy Crush (or other gambling-adjacent games) as the same as how most gamers would use the phrase, which is generally about PC and console gaming.
Games: yes
Gamers: not the type of gamers that would self-identify as one
Not trying to be disparaging, but I just was expecting something else from the headline.
Or rather, the question is, why does the opinion of these PC and console gaming matter here? The topic is very clearly older people who play games and market. Of course I do not want to be associated with "gamers" as a cultural group, thank you very much. But, that does not mean it should be impossible to discuss actual smart phone games I used to like or still like.
I know that gamers feel offended every time games I like get discuss without it being pointed out how inferior those games are. Which is one of reasons why I do not want to be associated with that cultural group. But that does not mean everyone needs to constantly tip toe arounds the topic and it should be freaking possible to use that word in general sense.
The whole reason I play video games is because my parents did. Some of my earliest memories was being crammed on the couch with my parents and sister, trying to wrap my head around Missile Command on an Atari VCS (2600) before the age of three. When we got an NES, the common thing was after we were put to bed, we'd hear the screeching of tires in R.C. Pro-AM. Or the music from Ice Climber. Or the frantic quacking of Duck Hunt.
Many years ago I gave my folks a Nintendo DSi XL for the holidays, with a bunch of games. When I went back for Mother's Day, I noticed the DSi XL was blue instead of white... because they bought a second (blue) one so they could both be playing games at the same time.
Dad plays a lot more on his iPad nowadays given his vision, but things like Chris Sawyer's top-notch iOS port of Roller Coaster Tycoon. He'll AirPlay it to the TV so him and mom can collaborate, or to show houseguests his parks. Or he plays Firaxis's great ports of the modern X-COMs. Mom likes Stardew Valley quite a bit, though still breaks out the Professor Layton series on the DS.
Games get old, but the good ones hold up. Some of my favorite games from 35+ years ago still hold up extraordinarily well. It’s rare that you’ll watch a single movie hundreds of times, but there’s games where you easily can. Certainly not all, but a good chunk of them.
My folks put them down because of real life and because their son could demolish them in anything competitive (heck, I did speedrunning for a bit at some of the highest levels), but when you give them some top quality games and they have the time, they remembered the value pretty quick. As they’re moving into a very fixed income, they see the value for money they get from them.
Granted, they lucked out that one of their kids keeps a pulse on what’s good for all audiences. I don’t think my mom would’ve stumbled onto Baba Is You if I didn’t gift it to her. Dad would’ve never found his ideal digital train set (I now have my father’s trains) in OpenTTD if I didn’t point him in that direction.
However, it’s definitely a “side gig,” for me. I don’t have a console, or a PC gaming rig. I’m also not into MP gaming. I don’t like being fragged by a 15-year-old kid, yelling physically impossible suggestions at me.
Just my Mac, and my iPad, with a couple of rather old games.
It was a more reasonable limitation 20+ years ago.
Tried to play Disco Elysium on it, and it's just too hard for me.
But now when I talk to young people, many of them don’t play or even know many games, and would rather just watch Netflix or YouTube.
However friends of my own age still play games.
So maybe video games isn’t actually a thing for young people, but simply a thing for people who were born in the 80-90s.
Just like rock’n’roll music. We used to think it was evergreen music for teens… But overtime realized it was simply for people born in the 40s-50s. And now it’s an old people’s thing.
I'll be damned if my nursing home days are going to be spent without a controller in my hand making my way through the Steam backlog.
He’s always loved games, from the moment he brought home a second hand C64 that we’d play International Soccer or Olympic Games on when I was a kid.
There’s clearly a massive market for stuff like the FF7 / RE4 remakes — not just graphical updates, but total overhauls of beloved classics with modern game design.
People will burn out eventually. But if I could play, I dunno, HL2 built in Unreal Engine with a modern team? I’d drop $60 in a heartbeat.
This sounds about right to me. I sell retro games, and we very rarely get customers in the 50+ age bracket (although there are plenty of ~40 year-olds who grew up in the NES era).
Half the oldies I know can't get enough of Words with Friends, Spider Solitaire and those weird mobile puzzle games from the Facebook ads, though.
So, think of chess or any board game. The domain movement is pretty much one dimensional and the dopamine hits (small wins) even tough small but frequent. The rules of the world are limited and there is limited lore.
Maybe when we say "gaming" we envision grand action packed games but there are games that are successful because of their absolute simplicity. And hence we have games like candy crush being so popular. Something that replicates the experience of board games while giving you the convinience to get started to without requiring snappy real time mental effort. You keep playing because of a constant and frequent small wins that sometimes result in a big win.
Now that I am writong this I am not thinking of chess anymore. This experience replicates gambling. So somewhere between gambling and gaming there lies beautiful concept of a gaming framework that would be perfect for older people.
These days they're almost interactive movies and I love VR in particular. It's just so amazing.
I still see a lot of judgement from more boring people my age though. I mainly hang out with makerspace people and they understand and sometimes even work in the gaming industry. But my old boss used to roll her eyes at us when we were talking about gaming. She was this ultra ambitious pantsuit type though, big family etc. Those people tend to just not understand though they'll happily binge Netflix.
This made me doubt the validity of the study.
Of course there are lots of older gamers, as consoles became popular in the 1980s and PC gaming in the 1990s; but these numbers are bunk.
...
Oh. The bottom of the article says: "AARP Research used NORC’s Foresight 50-plus Panel to survey a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults ages 40-plus who own a gaming-eligible device and play video games on that device at least once a month."
so maybe 45% of _those_ are gamers?
Many of us tech folks are huge gamers.
Companies that think games are only for young people are leaving a lot of money on the table.
I see this first hand with parents who used to be actual gamers 20 years ago but nowadays will rather brainrot "playing a game" on their phone.
I feel a bit weird knowing that I still enjoy these.
There it is. Sure, shovelware mobile gaming is technically a part of the gaming industry but should you really give a damn beyond economic reasons? It's like saying so and so group is a growing force in cinema but they're watching The Emoji Movie.
Who is crafting amazing experiences on mobile? Which smartphone games move you to tears? What studio is pushing graphics to the breaking point and making users go "oh my god, I didn't know games could look like this"? When's the last time you bought a soundtrack from an iPhone game? Nobody and never.
I don't have a source available, I hate it, because it brings a lot of bad things up.
Extreme example unfortunately. Mobile gaming as a whole is trash.
PC games never ever moved me to tears. PC and console games are not exactly well written, they are not about that anyway.
I would rather play smartphone games, because in last 15 years, I found some I actually enjoyed.
> What studio is pushing graphics to the breaking point and making users go "oh my god, I didn't know games could look like this"?
This just brings price up for literally zero benefit for me.
I think you're playing the wrong games, at least if emotional engagement is something you value in your media. What sorts of games do you enjoy?