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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."
Please refrain from from posting semi-interesting comments lest this entire thread become only semi-interesting.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
"A short and semi-interesting read."
That's good, because most of us gamers are also short and semi-interesting as well...
Another anonymous reader points out a not-so-suprising statistic: 92.4% of /. editors failed elemtary spelling exams.
I would be more interested in seeing how many of these people are unmarried ... or divorced as a direct result of gaming
If I were born earlier, but I'm just too young to qualify.
Large "POTION"? That's nasty. And a spell check wouldn't pick that up.
Sure it would:
It looks like you're trying to mix an invisibility potion, but you used three newt eyes instead of the correct number, four.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
My son however is a better example of an avid gamer. He's been playing Starcraft solidly for the past 2 weeks (school hols) including several overniters.
Seems a bit excessive to me, but then, I'm not addicted
... to gaming that is... Beer on the other hand...
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For great justice!
I used to (somewhat apologetically) explain to people that I had spent last friday night playing GTA3 (I'm 28). I used to think I was a loser, but it's nice to know I'm part of a larger demographic! :)
Then again, this doesn't necessarily mean I'm not a loser, just not the only one!
With the technology available when these 35-year-olds are 70, they'll be able to have fully immersive games embedded in their walkers.
Now that I am over 35 (egad! Going to hit 28h soon!) I can actually afford the games. The ones I buy would have been a heck of a lot of allowance or lawns in my day. In fact, I think this age thing also has to do with the fact that games are much better than they used to be too - from a hardware and software point. When I first started out there wasn't much available for my $3500 Leading Edge...
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
What popular games were out on the PC platform in the 70's? Perhaps they're talking about Super Mario or Pacman?
Does this same age group dominate the console market too? If so, then perhaps Nintendo and Playstation should change their target demographics. Stop selling games with "FREE Bike Decals!" and replace it with "FREE Car Insurance Estimate!"
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?
Unbelievable, they have been playing computer games for over 20 years and it hasn't killed them yet?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
men use bandaids and soldier onward princess zelda needs our attentions and school can only stay shut down from sheets of ice for so long..
that's when games focused on playability (read: FUN) rather than flashy (8 bits, mmm) graphics
I played pong when it was bleeding edge technology, why wouldn't I be excited about the great advances in games over the last several years or be looking forward to some of the new games coming out in 2003? I am part of a generation of kids who have had every system between the Atari 2600 and the Xbox, I would think that our consumer dollars would be very strong in this market. I just don't understand this being a surprise to anyone.
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.
Semi-News for Nerds. Stuff that semi-Matters.
...the surprising statistic that a large potion of computer gamers...
LAN Party in a bottle?
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
This actually makes sense, since many of them began gaming in the 70's.
Right, this makes sense. If you are 35 and you are gaming, you must have been doing so your entire lifetime.
How about this instead: Someone who is 35 now was in their mid teens when arcade games were really big in the mid eighties. They started playing the games non-stop. Most of them did not play on computers at home, they went out to an arcade.
Fast forward ten to fifteen years. Home game consoles are so cheap and so powerful that they're better than going to the arcade. The same people who went to the arcade started buying the game consoles.
Which brings us to today. Believe it or not folks, I actually know some people who are over 35 years old, and they might actually fool you into thinking they weren't wearing Depends. Most of them still like doing the things they did when they were in their late teens and early twenties, which includes gaming.
Now, if the study had claimed that the average gaming age was 40 or 45, that would have been a little harder to swallow.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
> That is quite scary, considering that gaming is at an all time high right now...so, if in 20 years
> 90+% of gamers are over 35, i wouldn't be shocked....
Ummmm. That really doesn't make any sense. The birth rate isn't plummetting catastrophically. I teach high school - and I assure you that a large fraction of the 14-year-olds on down are quite hooked. They'll be 34 in 20 years, and I don't see any likely reason that gaming would stop gaining recruits. 10 or so to 35 is an awfully big fraction of the population, much more than 10% - even if they WERE underrepresented in the gaming group, they'd claim more than 10% of it. And I see such an underrepresentation as unlikely. A higher fraction of today's youth are gamers, for instance, than were gamers in the 70s.
"REAL geeks think that Y2K happens in the year 2048."
Don't you mean 2038? Assuming of course, that you are referring to the problems that may occur in 2038 when the number of seconds since the beginning of the UNIX epoch will overflow 32 bit integers.
~Phillip
When potion is consumed, 12 hit-dice of computer gamers are summoned in the area surrounding the consumer. Half of the summoned computer gamers will attack the enemies of the party of the consumer, half will form an opposing team and attack the other half (and the party itself). They will remain for 6 turns, until unsummoned, or until the supply of Mountain Dew runs out, whichever occurs first.
Some of them are still playing the same Nethack game they started in 79!
The rest are probably wandering through the Zork anthology over and over and over..... hell, I've been lost in the Zork II maze since 1989.
1. One moment mom, I just have to save my game!
2. I'll be there soon honey, I'm almost done
3. Damnit Martha where are my spectacles? I can't see the crosshairs and I'm 4 frags behind.
If I can find a game that's not a repeat-concept when I'm 40 I'll be very happy - phorm
People won't be complaining about the food, they'll be saying "This internet connection isn't any good"
I remember when Quake 3 was all the rage.
in our old folks homes get a loada the way we can press that call button!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
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
a surprising number of drivers can be found in all age ranges. not surprising since cars have been around for almost a hundred years.
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the surprising statistic that a large potion of computer gamers are over 35.
Interesstingly, a large portion of humans are over 35.
Gee, who woulda thunk that *old* people might like playing games? It's unseemly I tell you. Next thing you know 35 year olds will expect to be *real* racing drivers, mercenaries, adventurers, golfers, fighter pilots and, ummmm. . . Tertroids.
We have to put a stop to this. Kill 'em. Kill 'em at 30. Kill 'em all!
Here's another hot newsflash from the blindingly obvious findings desk, your parents still " do it." Not only that, they "do it" more often, and *better,* than you do.
KFG
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.
Hunting is good. It'll help his CounterStrike game. I can see it now: father and son bunny-hopping through the woods with AWPs.
An open letter to the editors of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:
Your articles are only quasi-interesting. Semi-interesting. You're the margarine of interesting. You're the Slashdot of interesting -- only one calorie, not interesting enough!
Thank you.
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 told you once
No you didn't
Yes I did
When
Just now
No you didn't.
Look if I argure, I must take up a contrary positionI
yes but that isn't just saying "no it isn't"
yes it is
no it isn't
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For great justice!
Back in my day gamers were all young and we had to use our imaginations! Screens only had four pixels and the only colour we had was black. Then some upstart invented amber and it's been all downhill since then...
Raiford -- Hacking Linux since 1993
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
...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.
It isn't any great mystery -- it's simple economics, plus demographics.
Kids (say, up through early college) would like to play games, but don't have the disposable income.
Younger adults (say, late college through late 20s) have disposable income, but they are spending their money on social pursuits, vacations, cars, gadgets, clothing, etc.
But when they finally marry and start families, the center for entertainment switches to the home...and those $50 games are somewhat more affordable once you hold down a real job.
"she says i'm lousy conversation. as if that's supposed to help."
Heck, I'll be 37 in December but I don't consider myself "aging".
When I have the inkling to buy SimAdultDiapers or SimLawnBowling at the software storethen I'll consider myself "aging".
Until then, I'll still stomp your arse in UT 2003, lad!
Harumph!
Trolling is a art,
I wonder if, when we're all senior citizens and fragging away on each other with Quake XXXVI, and taunting each other with broadband audio and vidio feeds, if the kids will pass us by and scoff. Maybe they would says things like "What's wrong with those old farts?! Why do they play that crap when they could just talk to each other?"
Perhaps there *is* hope for our species after all.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!