02-20-2018, 02:05 PM | #1 |
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Older gamers
How many do you know? By older I mean people aged 50-55 and above. I'm curious about how they got into gaming considering games weren't really a thing when they were kids. My mother never cared for games and finds it difficult to understand why someone aged 18 and above would play them still, despite knowing there's games for every age group out there. Other older people have also told me they find games a waste of time and that young people should go out more. And the ones who understand the phenomenon just aren't able to get the hang of the controllers.
By "gamers" I don't mean old people who played Wii Sports a few times or have Bejeweled on their phones, btw. I normally don't like the term "gamer" but I just wanted to make it clear that I mean people aged 55 and above who are into games as much as younger people are. Seems like a random thread, but I'm curious. Thoughts? |
02-20-2018, 02:29 PM | #2 | |
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Haven't seen any people in their 40s who are actively into video games, let alone old people lol.
But I do have a feeling that when our current generation becomes old, we will eventually start revisiting nostalgic titles and create a trend where old people start playing games from the 90s/2000s or something.They're pretty easy to access nowdays too thanks to emulators and I imagine that the trend of convenience will become even better in the distant future.
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02-20-2018, 02:35 PM | #3 | |
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02-20-2018, 03:07 PM | #4 |
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My Mom's not a gamer anymore, but throughout the 90's, in her 30's/40's she was. My half-brother had a Gameboy which my mom took interest in & played when he was asleep or whatever, ended up getting her own. Then when SNES dropped, she asked for it as a birthday gift. It was through her that I got into games. She was huge on Tetris, Mario, Zelda, DK, etc, all the key stuff. She stopped following games in the early 2000's, GBA was her last console. Now she just plays stuff online, though once in a blue moon she'll ask me to play my SNES or pop in to watch me play her faves.
I don't really know people in that age-range otherwise. Should I live to be a senior, I could definitely see myself actively taking part. I've made it this far without losing interest. Still a hardcore Nintendo guy.
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02-20-2018, 03:13 PM | #5 | |
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Well I suppose i'll be playing games when I'm an old man as well. Unless the industry dies or takes a nosedive, I don't see why not. |
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02-20-2018, 03:17 PM | #6 |
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I get the feeling that our generation will be the first generation to still play games in our 50's+ regularly.
You have to realize our parents generation did not grow up with videogames. They grew up knowing them as Arcade games like Space Invaders or Pacman. Or Pong. They were a generation before videogames became a thing people played regularly. That's why our parents always used to say, "You're supposed to outgrow videogames" or "You're too old to be playing videogames" etc. It wasn't until the NES came out in 1985 and Nintendo/Sega made games popular among kids in the 80's and 90's that we had our first videogame generation. Then the Playstation and PS2 came out making videogames more mainstream for casuals in the late 90's and early 2000's. And nowadays it seems like all the people who play games are now in their late 20's through 30's. And that's because all the 30+ year olds playing games now were the original kid fans from the 80's and 90's. |
02-20-2018, 03:18 PM | #7 | |
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02-20-2018, 09:44 PM | #8 | |
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02-20-2018, 09:54 PM | #9 |
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Same here. I never understood why some people don't like the word. For me, it's just a simple way to describe people who play games or have interest in video games regularly.
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02-20-2018, 09:59 PM | #10 |
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Because it's a label. It's like the people who self-proclaim themselves as "geeks" or "nerds." Like "I'm a videogame geek." Or "I'm a Star Wars nerd."
There's also a negative stigma surrounded to labels. If you say you're a gamer, it gives people the image that you do nothing but sit home all day and play videogames and live in your parents basement. On the other hand if you say you play videogames, it makes it look like you have a normal life. |
02-20-2018, 10:09 PM | #11 |
Y'all need Jesus
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Yeah, pretty much what CyberCubed said. Any label is the worst.
Last edited by Cure; 02-20-2018 at 11:53 PM. |
02-20-2018, 10:36 PM | #12 | |
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02-21-2018, 12:29 AM | #13 |
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Honestly, I don't get caught up in what people think. I think the labels exist for a reason. I mean, if you go around professing that you're a gamer or that you're such a nerd for this, then that makes you look like an attention seeking loser. But at the same time, people are going to judge you for anything. Whether you're Black, Mexican, Christian, or Atheist, people will have some sort of deluded thought of you, but that doesn't mean we should start ditching the labels.
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02-21-2018, 12:47 PM | #14 | |||
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02-21-2018, 01:16 PM | #15 |
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He asked me how I can play video games for an hour. Like I said though, it hadn't even been an hour, and it was more like HALF an hour. Besides, an hour of playing video games is nothing. The car inspection actually didn't really take a whole hour either. I just always like to have something with me to keep me occupied while I wait on lines, at the doctor's office, riding on public transportation, plane rides, or whatever. There are times where I'll have a book to read. That time, I had a video game that I could work on. Still, I didn't need some dude half-assedly judging me on it.
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02-21-2018, 01:41 PM | #16 | |
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I really don't bring my 3DS with me when I go out asides from using the spotpass and streetpass feature. I don'r really take long enough public transportation rides or wait long enough in lines on a daily basis in order to need my 3DS to keep myself entertained for an hour or so. If I have 10-15 minutes to wait for something I just brag my phone and browse the internet or play a quick mobile game. A book I really need some time to read it. I dunno how you read, but I'm nto the type of person who can only read 10-15 mins at a time and then put down the book. I usually read in periods ranging from 30-40 mins to one hour in a half or so. |
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02-21-2018, 01:43 PM | #17 |
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I'm 41, from exactly the generation Cubed mentioned. Yes, I still game (infrequently). I am a gamer, and have been since my parents got our first computer, a (then first-rate tech) TI 99/4A. My first games on it were Parsec, Sneggit, and Alpiner. I also played the original console versions of Pong and Star Wars. Yes, I have been gaming THAT long. My first pure game console was the NES, and my stepdad used to play it with me, and sometimes he even ran through games on his own. It was one of the few things we actually did together. Mario Bros, Big Bass, Bigfoot monster trucks) and Top Gun were a few of the ones we both played. I also had the first Zelda, TMNT, and Last Starfighter. I still play on my 360 (don't have anything newer) fairly often, as well as games like Fate and Neverwinter Nights on my PC. Mine is the first generation of ACTUAL gamers, but even my parents' generation gamed a bit from time to time as family fun activities.
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02-21-2018, 01:50 PM | #18 | |
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I'm talking about people aged 55 and above here. I know there's some old people who are into games but they're a minority. I asked this same question to some people and two of them told me they have fathers who are aged about 67-70 years old and love games. Someone aged 70 today was born in 1947-1948, meaning they already got into games when they were adults. I guess some people are more open to the evolution of technology than others. My grandparents never bothered to learn how ot use a mobile phone, let alone a computer, but there«s definitely many old people out there who use and own mobile phones and computers. |
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02-21-2018, 02:05 PM | #19 |
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Actually, I was born at the tail end of '76. The thing is, video games didn't even EXIST until my generation, so older people largely didn't even know about them until they became big in the 80's, and those were mostly in arcades- places that catered mainly only to kids and teens. Many adults either didn't understand the appeal, or felt they were some fad for kids only. It's as much a generation gap thing as it is a lack of interest. Adults over 50 mostly just don't "get it" unless they were still sort of in that transitional stage themselves when video gaming was born.
(Though there WAS an "adult gamer culture" even back then, as early 20-somethings began to hang out in them and play competitively against others, mostly for bets or bragging rights. The movie Tron actually illustrates this with the scenes in Flynn's arcade, and so does the movie The Wizard.) But as I said, my dad played games both alone and with me when I was growing up, so some older folks DID, and some still do, game. As far as my parents, he and my mom both play games on their phones regularly, and have a few on their home pc as well.
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02-21-2018, 03:55 PM | #20 | |
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What I do to keep myself occupied depends on the situation also. I thought the usual waiting period during a car inspection was suitable for playing a video game, and even reading a book. If I'm waiting on a line at a store, I'll just go on my phone, and I might even have a book. |
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