Gaming When We're 64

Via Kotaku, a post on the Aeropause site about gaming as we get older. Richard has a great 'get off my lawn you damn kids' rant, and some insightful commentary on the problems we'll face as we get up there. From the article: "The other issue older gamers will face is the ever increasing difficulty of games. Games have come a long way since the simplicity of the A and B buttons. Today's controllers are becoming more and more complicated and require greater dexterity to master. While this is no problem for gamers right now, as we get older and lose some of our dexterity we will need to come up with ways to simplify the gameplay or the controller."

Comments

Re:Who says older folks don't play games?

[kfg]

What's more, who says older people lose dexterity?

I play with musicians in their sixties on a regular basis and sometimes with musicians in their seventies and eighties. I wish some of them would lose some damned dexterity so I could bloody well keep up. I've also noted that a piano accordian is more complicated and has more damned buttons on it than any game controller I've ever seen (although the controller sounds better); and if you want a complicated "controller" just have a look at an Irish pipe player, pumping the bellows with one arm, squeezing the bag with the other, fingering the pipe itself, hitting regulator keys, stopping the end of the pipe against his knee while the other leg stomps time.

Don't you know how the old saying goes?

Use it or lose it.

You don't lose dexterity when you get old, you lose it when you quit.

"Doctor, doctor, I lose dexterity when I don't go like this!" Figure out the rest on your own.

KFG

wrong!

[John Nowak]

You can't even read the statistics you're citing properly. That link says 25% of gamers are 50+, not that 25% of those 50+ play games. That's a huge difference, and indicates that 50+ gamers make up a large percentage of the market.

Why do I even bother with Games postings...