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What About the Grey Gamers?
Chris Morris at CNN's Game Over column wonders out loud about the legions of older gamers, and their snubbing by most of the gaming industry. From the article: "The Entertainment Software Association reports that 19 percent of the people playing video games are 50 or older. That's a huge jump from 1999, when players of that age group made up just 9 percent of the gaming world. Game publishers, though, seemingly couldn't care less - mainly leaving senior gamers to Web-based games, such as PopCap Games' 'Bookworm'. And while it certainly makes loads of sense for publishers to focus primarily on the core market, especially in transitional times like they're experiencing now, that focus is at risk of becoming myopic."
If that's what floats your boat.
I'm not an older gamer but I just recently started to play the games of my youth again. Telengard and Castle Wolfenstein (the original, not the FPS) rock!
And this isn't to say I'm upset with the gaming industry, they're just getting old (as in tired). I still love playing stuff like CS:S but have you looked at what's coming out? Aside from the new Hitman all the new releases are just crap.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Naturally, of course, there's still plenty of clout among the "video games are just for kids" crowd to delay this eventuality.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
Those darned space aliens better not be farmers.
I only hope that when I'm 72 and sitting down to play a little Mario Cart or Half-Life, my little brat grandkids won't bug me all the time with questions. "how do you play this game without stereo-glasses grandad?" "Is that supposed to be an alien?" Goddamn kids.
In team based online multiplayer games, the older players bring a level of experience, maturity, and organization that often make the group better as a whole, or at least more fun to play with. In many gaming clans I've been with over the years, its usually the older players (40+) who take the lead and provide an example for the 12 year olds in the group. So I say they're good for gaming, and at the very least, they don't swear as much over teamspeak and don't call everyone a n00b.
I'm not yet "old and grey," but I've never liked FPS games. DOOM was unique when it came out, but if you've seen one, you've seen them all. (Yes, I've tried more modern versions; the graphics are much more realistic, but there's still really no plot.)
Why aren't there more games like Syberia, Myst, The 7th Guest? Even Zork, with *no* graphics, was more interesting than the shoot-anything-that-moves games that the industry seems to concentrate on these days.
Why not, for example, a space exploration game -- concentrating on the science, economics, and logistics involved, instead of the usual shoot-the-evil-green-aliens theme?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
"Why not, for example, a space exploration game -- concentrating on the science, economics, and logistics involved, instead of the usual shoot-the-evil-green-aliens theme?"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what games like Homeworld and Age of Empires are all about?
"Oh boy"
Does this mean the slashdot community is getting older too?
There are plenty of puzzle and card games as well as the new cool games. As a 37 year old, I am still as excited as playing a new game as I was when I was 15. One difference is that I want to jump in, play for an hour or so, then jump out. It is for this reason that I have avoided MMORPGs. I waited my whole life for these games to arrive, playing muds, single player dungeons (mines of moria / krozair on the plato cluster, dungeon master on my ST, wizardry on my apple ][, nethack on every computer I have ever had). Now I don't want to use up all of my time playing them. I imagine when I slow down in my later years, I will enjoy the latest immersive dungeon or space game more than watching the 3dTV or whatever we have in 25 more years, but for now I just blast away for an hour or so and then go about my business as usual. One big hit with the older and younger crowd is and will always be sports games, especially golf. Also don't underestimate the denial of old people thinking that they are still young ! (looks in the mirror, "you still got it, champ")
music lover since 1969
"Get Off My Lawn 1.0" We could have Maxis do it, ala the Sims engine. Where you have a life simulation where you drive at 5mph down the roads, pay for food at the supermarket with 5,000 coupons, and yell at kids to get off your lawn.
I kind of hope that's true, so it'll give them one more reason to give me more 2D games...
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
What would you, a "grey gamer," like to play?
I'd earnestly like to know the answers to these questions.
It's clear that you can "learn new tricks," otherwise you wouldn't be playing these games. So, what sorts of new tricks do you want to perform?
"I'll know it when I see it."
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I'd like to see more games with a wider range of difficulty settings. I get frustrated with games that expect everyone to have lightning-fast reflexes and excellent hand-eye coordination. There's a reason I became a computer programmer and not a baseball player.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Still, most people in the 40s and 50s just don't have time for computer games. Between family, work, church/community and other activities (yardwork, household repairs, struggles to get to the gym, etc.), they typically don't have the amount of free time required by most modern computer games. I work out of a home office on a consulting basis, so unless I'm swamped by current engagements, I can easily block out several hours to spend on a game. However, there have been other times in my life when I've had a 'regular' job; during those times, I've gone months or years without playing a computer game for the reasons cited above.
Another downside for older gamers is that the 'costs' of spending lots of time on games are higher--e.g., it can interfere with work (and income), can cause serious marital problems, and so on. I know a man in his early 30s whose marriage is undergoing severe stress largely because of his obsession with HalfLife 2. In my own case, I have from time to time simply thrown away games because I felt I was wasting too much time playing them and not enough time on other projects (books, etc.).
My own preferences tend to be strategy/simulation games, including historical war games and large-scale strategy games (the Civ games and various space-based 4x [eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate] games). I tend to prefer turn-based games over real-time strategy (RTS) games, but have still spent time with the latter (e.g., LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth). I've played several RPGs (e.g., DungeonSiege, Neverwinter Nights, Freelancer) and even some MMORPGs (Earth and Beyond). While first-person shooter (FPS) games are not my first choice, I'll cheerfully play them if the subject matter is interesting; I've bought and played several of the Star Wars FPS games (Republic Commando, Battlefront I and II).
Were I to design for 'grey gamers', I would probably focus on the following:
Beyond that, I'd apply some of my own preferences on game design:
FWIW. ..bruce..
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Then came StarTrek -- on an cool new VT100! A capital 'E' was the Enterprise, a capital 'K' a Klingon ship, a '*' was a star, etc. Oh, and a capital 'S' was the dreaded SuperCommander, a Romulan super-ship. Ooooooo! :)
Of course, it didn't stop there. I was instantly addicted with the original Doom when it came out, and spent many pleasant hours on my Mac IIci playing Myst (yep, I went both ways in those days, PC and Mac). Descent consumed so much of my life I think of it as my EverCrack (which I didn't even dare to try...).
The Diablo series was a fantastic break thru in game play, at least for me. WarCraft was, well, simply a bit slow paced. The first Myth was pretty good, but, again, the speed and adrenaline of the FPS's called. Quake, wow! Quake II? Awesome! But, alas, by this time (early 2000's) my reflexes start to slow, and playing online against others that are 20 years younger starts to tell the tale.
So, the "grey gamer", at least in my case, is really a very long-time gamer. What I'd like to see is either more games like RTCW:ET, where there is more than just fire-and-jump-around going on, or perhaps ways to form "senior" leagues where folks of the same skill (i.e., reflex speed) can play competitively.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
If 19% of gamers are over 50 years old, that tells me they are already targeting the 50+ year old gamers. You got 19% of the market already at 50+! What you want, to make JUST games targeting older croud?
If anything, I think if 19% of gamers are 50 years or older, while the average overall age is something like 28 years old.. You may want to BACK DOWN the maturity of the games some and target the YOUNGER croud.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
It's a different experience, hearing the diabolical laugh of your sixty-something mother as the rocket-propelled grenade she fired hits you in the forehead. My parents played Mario on Nintendo late into the night while I was in college, later on they played all the way through Duke Nukem 3, and now I just hope that Forever comes out before they're too old and feeble for me to take revenge!
...more easter eggs like GTA's HotCoffee please!!!
You mean you won't be harassing them on the phone with questions about how to remove that blinking 12:00 on the latest popular gizmo1 you bought ?...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Well I guess I'd be one if I still had hair. I'll be 55 this year. I remember playing Pong on the old b/w tv when it first came out. The next clear memory I have is of playing a video game in Picadilly Circus in London about 1972 it was called UFO I think, it was just a centered space ship able to rotate and "shoot" at flying saucers. But it was a "real" video game. My first computer games were Mission Impossible and some other text based game that I accessed from a sequential tape drive. Now a days I prefer the FPSs. The shop where I work actually has a SOF2 server set up and when things are slow we all jump on it. I'm the grandpa at the shop by about 10 years but I can still teach the younkers a thing or two about guile and just being plain old sneaky. The newer FPSs to me are just not as good. Lot of flash (eye candy) but no substance. (ex: Doom 3).
although I think today the puzzles might strike most people as not flowing too well within the game -- they were almost 'mini-games.'
As if any fan of Feel the Magic or WarioWare would have a problem with that.
... Old Grandma Hardcore.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
OK, so when Robert Plant sang, "If there's a bustle in your hedge-row, don't be alarmed now," he wasn't just all hopped up on goofballs or something. He was talking about kids trying to sneak through your yard. I don't think I'll ever understand those wacky Englishmen.
going back and playing old Genesis games the graphics aren't as unrecognizable as the 2600/intellivision era stuff. Even 10+ year old games like Mega Turrican, Granada and Wizard of Wor hold up pretty well. Some later stuff like Maximum Carnage and the Sonic Series look better then a lot of games out today. There were some rough edges when 3D graphics first hit (early PSX and Saturn titles are nearly as laughable as 2600 games), but by the Dreamcast's era that wasn't much of an issue. Sad to say, but the era of firing up a videogame and not having a flying f*** what's going on has passed.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Who says they aren't marketing to the older Gamer? My 63 year old mother seems wuite content with the games on her PS2, Gamecube and Xbox and her subscription to WoW.
-- More Smoke! The mirrors aren't working!!!
Someone should seriously consider creating Elderly Escape, a stealth action where the purpose is to escape from an assisted living center (aka old folks' home). Throw in some branching dialogue trees ("son, please bring me a hacksaw for my birthday") and puzzles (how can you get your wheelchair-bound friend Chuck into the ventilation ducts?) and advanced AI for the patrolling "nursing assistants" and you have a very lively game.
Or what about Grandma's House a management sim of dealing with visiting grandkids. Yes, you could just spoil them rotten with cookies, but then they may break many of your porcelain figurines as they engage in sugar-high induced rough-housing. Contrariwise, you could use the old wooden-spoon and send them outside, but that would affect your Granny-love rating.
Lastly, I think a senior dating sim is one kind of dating sim that Jack Thompson couldn't criticize without fear of offending his Florida neighbors. Yeah, sure most people know what to how to woo sassy 20-somethings and properly introduce them to your parents, but it's way more challenging to figure out how to woo a sassy 70-something Betty dealing with slight hearing loss and properly introduce her to your grandkids.