Slashdot Mirror
The Aging Gamer
An anonymous reader writes "There is a short article at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle about the surprising statistic that a large potion of computer gamers are over 35. This actually makes sense, since many of them began gaming in the 70's. A short and semi-interesting read."
I am sure everyone knows what "Nintendo Thumb" is. Playing so long that you form blisters on top of blisters.
What kind of health hazards do we need to watch out for in the future.
Chronic arthritis of the thumbs is one thing but what happens when we all start gaming in VR?
Ok I am 32 years old. Here is what I played. Wasn't no Sega or Nintendo in my day.
Pinball - Silverball Mania
Pong - Cocktal Version, lost many a quarter(but pops snuck me into bars, cause that is where pong lived.
Boot Hill - FPS? The Original death match.
What about those wierd baseball games where you hat to bat at the balls with the stick on a lever?
Shoot the bear with the 90 pound rifle?
Then came the 2600 for me. I can play Combat by myself for hours.
Breakout? You kicked its ass enough the bricks didnt come back.
AS for being in the thirties. I still latch on too the odd game(gotta keep the kiddies in check cause I can't impress em with my cool Galaga skills).
Now I am playing The Thing. Not so bad, the character barf and commit suicide.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
While my kids interest grew to every platform in the catalog, I gradually got away from games altogether, except to check in on what I determined was the bleeding edge....I would try my hand once or twice a year just to see how the graphics, as an example, were advancing.
Later, I decided that editing tech docs for a living was limiting my scope. I felt I was locked into one way of using a computer (or console) and that could not be good. I bought my own PS1 and several car racing titles just to do something different with a processor and display and how my mind was relating. I figure as long as this is how I earn my living, it doesn't hurt to exercise hand-to-eye coordination in the interest of keeping things (mentally) limber.
Yes, I remember spending hours playing PONG and Parsec. Things have come a long way, and my kids are much more into it than I am, but I still find GT3 a great way to waste an afternoon.
Look maybe I exaggerated a bit. He has eaten, he has slept - a bit. I read the Korean thing. I'm trying to give him some space while school's out. But I'm willing to consider alternatives, if it will help him to have a happier life.
Geez, give me a break $0 elite; some constructive suggestions would go down well........
-----
For great justice!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously?
Star Trek (variants). I learned Linear Algebra working out how to move my ship around hyper-space on the Star Trek game a friend and I wrote on our TRS-80 model 1.
Lemonade Stand on the Apple II+.
There was a stock market sort of game that came standard with the Comodore Pet.
Wumpus was big on the Kim MOE-1 (but you had to enter the code each time you wanted to play - we didn't have the cassette tape interface.)
My favorite game was a Dungeons and Dragons game that I got the majority of the code from out of an article in Byte. We hacked the code up into a fun little game. I remember missing a date with my girlfriend - later my wife - because I was so excited about showing some friends a new monster and attack that I had coded.
In illa quae ultra sunt
I belong to a gaming clan. We just play for fun because most of us are older and don't have the time it takes to develope the skills.
Our tag is =VIO= which stands for Victory Is Ours.
The running joke for people who ask is that it stands for Viagra Is on Sale.
You can visit us on: irc.Renegade-IRC.Net #vio
I know what the Internet is, what the hell is this Interweb business?!
I started playing games on a model 33 Teletype. Then we got an OSI 540 board going and I played Tiger Tank 'til the wee hours. And Wumpus and all matter of things, before discovering $DUNGEO (many refer to this as Zork) and $ADVENT (Colossal Cave), both brought back on a tape from a DECUS. Then there were many others written by students, before the first Apple Lab opened on campus and color was introduced. Eventually arcades sprung up at the mall, where Mario lept over barrels to rescue a princess.
Aging gamers? Well, there's aging games, too, which many call AbandonWare (and many a site dedicated to the nobel cause of keeping these things alive, while EA keeps recreating the same themes over and over...)
It's really a question of what a generation does with its leisure time. Mine spent it gaming. The current one does, too. It's rather hard to imagine future generations not doing it (unless everyone suddenly falls for some absurd cult.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I wonder if there have been any studies into the age of gamers (console and PC and any difference there may be). I also wonder if it is a bell curve-shaped age distribution -- meaning, if the average gamer is over 35, does that mean there are just as many gamers older than 35 than younger than 35? Or does it mean that the mean is somewhere between 25-30 and where is the mode(s)? I mean, it could be inverted, with emphasis on the 10-14 yr. olds, and another emphasis on 30-35 yr. olds. Anyways, just doing my statistics hw and trying to find some usefulness for it...
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Why would anyone quit gaming?
I've been gaming for the last 14 years (I'm 20 right now) and every year that passes I find I enjoy games less and less. Nothing can ever bring me back to the highs I achieved with Mario 1 or Warcraft 2. Even though the games today have better graphics and are supposedly more advanced, I just don't find them fun, and it gets worse with every new game I get. I expect to stop gaming altogether within a year or two. I kind of think its like playing with lego or something, a lot of people just grow out of it as they get older. It is sad for me though, I havn't really found anything new to fill the void that games used to fill.
With apologies to Alfred E. Newman...
What, me old?
By the way, I have a copy of Crowther and Woods' original Adventure on paper tape for the PDP-11/55, and I have got the Zork Trilogy on my Linux box.
It got me too the first time - it was the first problem year that popped into my head and I just figured - eh - probably got a digit wrong.
But as the other respondents say, there's a more basic answer. I guess I'm just getting ahead of myself envisioning the truckloads of cash I'll be collecting from my steady investment in short-term thinking.
And hey - have we planted the seeds to build the trust funds for the children of the poor techies in 2050 who missed the train? We should start thinking about that now - wouldn't want to wait to the last second...bwaahahahaha!
Last post!
I started playing computer games at age 14 in 1980, on a TRS-80, then an Apple II. I started playing a fair bit (growing up in a town of 350 folks there isn't a lot to do, anyway), when my science teacher noticed something in me. He said, "You know, I'm not going to let you play on that thing anymore unless you learn to program it!" I asked, how am I going to do that? He responded by throwing the programming manual in my lap and said, "Here. Ask if you have any questions."
That got me started down the path to my current career! I played a lot of games in HS, but I also wrote my own text based adventure game on an Apple II, and I even wrote a little "Star Wars" game on a Vic 20 that I borrowed from a neighbor kid over Christmas Break!
I'm now a Software Engineer for a Government Contractor firm, working in some cool technologies. I still play games today (having moved up from Apple Panic and Castle Wolfenstein 1 to Serious Sam II), but I don't play as much as I used to, having a wife and two kids. I do let my kids play a little more than I probably should, but I'm hoping that the love of computers might get them interested in programming, too! Since we homeschool, I personally think they'd have a GREAT computer programming teacher!
P.S. Thanks, Mr. B! (science teacher) Without you, I might still be a gamer, but I probably never would have become a programmer!
I can only speak from anecdotal evidence, but if you drop the number down a few years (say 30 or so) then this is completely in line with my experience.
;)
I'm 32. I played my first video game when I was around 5 (Pong) and have been a hard core gamer since 1979 when I got my Atari 2600. My enthusiasm for video games (both old and new) hasn't wavered a bit since then. With the possible exception of sex, video games are my absolute favorite activity. (From a romantic relationship standpoint this isn't really a problem, since it's balanced out by my total lack of interest in sports, but I digress.)
Most of my peer group (friends and coworkers) is the same way, and we all game regularly, both alone (on PCs and consoles) and networked (LAN parties and over the `Net). I don't think I know a single person who ever "grew out of" video games.
I think that the difference in our perception is based on how we game. When we (my friends and I) deathmatch it's usually on a private server that one of us has set up. Rarely do we play on public servers, as the performance tends to be poorer and the players tend to be more obnoxious (not all of them, obviously, but the dickhead ratio is definitely higher on open games).
It could simply be that younger gamers are less likely to have access to a restricted dedicated server, and hence more likely to play together on open servers. Older gamers tend to have more disposable income and are less likely to have to justify the cost of a dedicated server to someone, as well as more opportunity to lug their machines over to a LAN party.
Just my $.02
-Cybrex
P.S.- My Titanium PowerBook is not just a handy tool; it's also loaded with every Atari 2600 game ever made and 4.5 GB of MAME ROMs.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Myself and my roommate spend a significant amount of time playing Operation Flashpoint online and I gotta say : Me at 30 and my roommate at 27 are sometimes the youngsters.
Also, more often than not, the older gamers are much more fun simply due to maturity. It's always more enjoyable to play with someone who understands concepts like: strategy, tactics, and TEAMWORK.
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
...just for the older gamer, like me.
I'm 38, and I still enjoy most kinds of games. Least amused by D&D style games like Neverwinter Nights (great title, though). I still rock with FPS and easily kick the ass of most people my age. Been playing a long time, since the 70's and Mattel's handheld football, the Ataris, and even DEC terminals with Camel and Trek.
Passing time with Diablo II still, getting into some Sims, been really fragging the shit out of some young-ums in Quake 3, and looking forward to showing young meat how to catch a lightsaber when Jedi Knight II comes out for Mac OS X in a couple of weeks.
Yep, card carrying, Excellent Fragging Member of The Old Gamers Club: Where you are never too young to get your ass kicked.
I sincerely plan to be old but still able to hang and beat my grandchildren at whatever marvels show up in the future. I was around during the dawn of the electronic gaming age, and my "Tron finger" is as snappy as ever.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
The oldest gamer I know of is about 53, member of the clan Quake 4 Oldies. One of the requirements to join the clan is that you are at least 30 years old. They even have a skin with wheelchairs :)
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
Hey, Im one of those thar age'n gammers. Im a grandpa at 47. I can still be found frag'n my way around CounterStrike. Always hav'n games around the house resulted in my too oldest kids to become computer science grads. One is launching his own game company soon. Any way its freak'n halarious when you take out these young'ns on CS and then taunt the sh*t out of'm.