5 ms·

Honestly I don't see the thirty something generation ever giving up video games. They've been a part of our entire lives at this point. Once we're old, it will

Honestly I don't see the thirty something generation ever giving up video games. They've been a part of our entire lives at this point. Once we're old, it will be a case where no generation has ever been without video games in some capacity.

alexchantavy 10y ago
There's also probably going to be a huge market in making games that older people can play when this generation hits retirement age.
- krapht 10y ago
  I don't see any reason why retirement-age me won't be able to play Super Mario 2060. Adjustable difficulty, whether through mechanical tweaks or competitive multiplayer matchmaking should be good enough?
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    Mario already offers invincibility and constant flying items you can take if you die a lot in the recent games, so you should be all set to play Mario 2060 :).
- mikestew 10y ago
  I'm bumping up against retirement age, and I'll still kick your ass at Titanfall (well, maybe; the odds are good, but not assured). Call of Duty, meh, not so much. I foresee a time where playing some twitch games aren't going to work for me anymore. But anything with the slightest hint of tactical gameplay and this oldster-in-the-making will be fine, I think. Especially the Tom Clancy games where "run and gun" just gets you killed more quickly. I look forward to Rainbow Six: Palm Springs with the Naples DLC expansion pack.
  - civilian 10y ago
    My dad just turned 65 and he still has no interest in video games except for solitaire. But I really think that he'd enjoy video games, especially as a way to keep an active mental life in retirement. I tried to explain the "it's almost-real physics!" angle of Kerbal Space Program, but that wasn't persuasive. Any tips? Also, have you played Overwatch or TF2? I found both of those more interesting than Titanfall-- and a wise player can really help a team by jumping into the role that isn't present on a team.
    - mikestew 10y ago
      "Hero" type games don't interest me much, and though Team Fortress interests me, just never made time for it. But, yeah, I've always been the one to sit on the flag with a rocket launcher, throw my warm body at a territory when no one else will (K/D, phfffftt). Don't see why that won't still serve me well in my old age.
      - civilian 10y ago
        Agreed at ignoring K/D :D Hmmm. So I don't think of Overwatch as a "Hero" type game (although I'm not sure what you mean by that). I think Overwatch classes map to TF2 classes pretty straightforwardly. And there's no leveling or grinding for functional items, so it is maybe even a better than TF2 in that regard?
        mikestew 10y ago
        Oh, perhaps I misread about Overwatch. Or getting confused in my old age. :-) Not that I'd have time to play it, what with Titanfall still being entertaining, have barely played Battlefield 1, and a new Ghost Recon comes out on the 7th. I look forward to retirement so I can have more time to play! EDIT: And I missed the part earlier where you asked for tips with your father. Ya know, I gave it some thought, and I don't know that I have any. Your dad is about ten years older than I am, which means he was just a tad past the proper age when the Atari 2600 came out. Me, I grew up with the Sears pong console, then came the day when we got a 2600. I was ten or twelve, just the right age to get hooked. So to me it's "umm, sure, I'm in my fifties and spend way too time playing video games. Your point?" whereas your father might have been just old enough to complain about those "kids and their video games", I don't know. So both he and I have had about fifty years to fall on one side or the other, and neither one of us has probably changed all that much since. You and I both wonder, "why wouldn't you think Kerbal is cool? Hell, if I were retired, it's all I'd do if I didn't have any discipline." because we're already over the hump of playing to begin with, whereas he hasn't gotten past the barrier of "video games==the devil's tool". Dunno, just spitballing, and unfortunately don't have any potential pearls of wisdom. IOW, I don't get it any more than you do.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- no_wave 10y ago
  The aging of the gaming populace is I think a large part of why online CCGs (like Hearthstone, Shadowverse, Eternal) have been getting so popular - while there are obviously a lot of kids who play, many of the players are older. As I've gotten older I've lost the wherewithal to focus on mechanically difficult games like SC2.
  - simplemath 10y ago
    Starcraft in particular always felt like work to me; the insane level of management required to simultaneously macro/micro... I never enjoyed it. Currently enjoying the apocalyptic wasteland / occasionally broken mess that is H1Z1: King of the Kill
- pjc50 10y ago
  Simulators seem to be popular for this. Someone to be buying all those expensive train sim addons..
- Baeocystin 10y ago
  I play World of Tanks with my friends, and we're all in our 40's. It's basically an FPS for people with slower reaction times.
civilian 10y ago
I am so excited for my retirement. I am going to make ceramics and play Go, two hobbies I wish I could spend more time on. But I'm also going to dump a fuckton of time into videogames. I remember visiting my grandparents in their homes (and later, their retirement and/or nursing homes), and it felt... boring. I'm looking forward to having an active gaming life, and an active social videochat/groupchat life with any of my friends who are still alive.
hnal943 10y ago
I thought this, but I've moved on to board games. I don't like being tied to the television and it feels like it puts the focus back on my friends instead of the game.
Baeocystin 10y ago
Am 43. Grew up playing games. Not planning on stopping any time soon. Went through the 'I should be doing something better with my time' phase briefly, about ten years ago. Realized it was anxiety driven, not rational. Having fun is an intrinsic part of being human, and cannot be skipped without genuine mental health consequences.
- problems 10y ago
  I've sort of been fighting with this myself - a few years ago I started working full time and spending more time with friends. When I get downtime it's pretty much just turned in to playing games or watching TV - I barely have time when I feel motivated enough to start learning something new anymore. I taught myself almost everything I know about programming in downtime during my teenage and college years, but that sort of highly motivated downtime hasn't carried over so well now that so much of my time is occupied automatically. I think you're right and having actual downtime when you're doing something relaxing is a very good thing, but I can't shake the feeling I should be accomplishing more. I guess I'm just sort of disappointed that all my most motivated times seem to have sunk into other activities and now I don't get them to learn on my own. I don't know what to do about it. EDIT: You know, I don't know anyone else who feels obliged to spend their free time in some sort of "productive" way except developers. Maybe I should just ignore this whole thing and accept that development has for the most part went from a hobby to a job for me and that's okay. Spending time with friends and gaming in my free time are probably more relaxing and improve my overall happiness more than forced productivity would. Optimizing happiness is probably a better idea than optimizing productivity. Eugh, I don't know, I keep bouncing back and forth on this one in my head.
  - Baeocystin 10y ago
    Some of my best ideas have come to me after hours of twaddling away with no particular goal in mind in SimCity. We as devs tend to seek optimal solutions as if they were a simple numeric quantity, where more/higher=better. We know this is not how things are, but the mental model is seductive in in its simplicity. What I have learned over the years is that it is the constant change between different forms of attention and focus that drive me to be my best. Which means time, real time, away from what I do for work. And when I return to work after doing so, I appreciate it all the more. You might be interested in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, Flow, if you have not yet read it. Although it has nothing to do with game playing per se, it helped clarify many aspects of my thinking when it came to why I felt I was 'wasting' time while gaming, and why I was wrong in that assessment. https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202 https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-...

alexchantavy 10y ago

There's also probably going to be a huge market in making games that older people can play when this generation hits retirement age.

krapht 10y ago
I don't see any reason why retirement-age me won't be able to play Super Mario 2060. Adjustable difficulty, whether through mechanical tweaks or competitive multiplayer matchmaking should be good enough?
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Mario already offers invincibility and constant flying items you can take if you die a lot in the recent games, so you should be all set to play Mario 2060 :).
mikestew 10y ago
I'm bumping up against retirement age, and I'll still kick your ass at Titanfall (well, maybe; the odds are good, but not assured). Call of Duty, meh, not so much. I foresee a time where playing some twitch games aren't going to work for me anymore. But anything with the slightest hint of tactical gameplay and this oldster-in-the-making will be fine, I think. Especially the Tom Clancy games where "run and gun" just gets you killed more quickly. I look forward to Rainbow Six: Palm Springs with the Naples DLC expansion pack.
- civilian 10y ago
  My dad just turned 65 and he still has no interest in video games except for solitaire. But I really think that he'd enjoy video games, especially as a way to keep an active mental life in retirement. I tried to explain the "it's almost-real physics!" angle of Kerbal Space Program, but that wasn't persuasive. Any tips? Also, have you played Overwatch or TF2? I found both of those more interesting than Titanfall-- and a wise player can really help a team by jumping into the role that isn't present on a team.
  - mikestew 10y ago
    "Hero" type games don't interest me much, and though Team Fortress interests me, just never made time for it. But, yeah, I've always been the one to sit on the flag with a rocket launcher, throw my warm body at a territory when no one else will (K/D, phfffftt). Don't see why that won't still serve me well in my old age.
    - civilian 10y ago
      Agreed at ignoring K/D :D Hmmm. So I don't think of Overwatch as a "Hero" type game (although I'm not sure what you mean by that). I think Overwatch classes map to TF2 classes pretty straightforwardly. And there's no leveling or grinding for functional items, so it is maybe even a better than TF2 in that regard?
      - mikestew 10y ago
        Oh, perhaps I misread about Overwatch. Or getting confused in my old age. :-) Not that I'd have time to play it, what with Titanfall still being entertaining, have barely played Battlefield 1, and a new Ghost Recon comes out on the 7th. I look forward to retirement so I can have more time to play! EDIT: And I missed the part earlier where you asked for tips with your father. Ya know, I gave it some thought, and I don't know that I have any. Your dad is about ten years older than I am, which means he was just a tad past the proper age when the Atari 2600 came out. Me, I grew up with the Sears pong console, then came the day when we got a 2600. I was ten or twelve, just the right age to get hooked. So to me it's "umm, sure, I'm in my fifties and spend way too time playing video games. Your point?" whereas your father might have been just old enough to complain about those "kids and their video games", I don't know. So both he and I have had about fifty years to fall on one side or the other, and neither one of us has probably changed all that much since. You and I both wonder, "why wouldn't you think Kerbal is cool? Hell, if I were retired, it's all I'd do if I didn't have any discipline." because we're already over the hump of playing to begin with, whereas he hasn't gotten past the barrier of "video games==the devil's tool". Dunno, just spitballing, and unfortunately don't have any potential pearls of wisdom. IOW, I don't get it any more than you do.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
no_wave 10y ago
The aging of the gaming populace is I think a large part of why online CCGs (like Hearthstone, Shadowverse, Eternal) have been getting so popular - while there are obviously a lot of kids who play, many of the players are older. As I've gotten older I've lost the wherewithal to focus on mechanically difficult games like SC2.
- simplemath 10y ago
  Starcraft in particular always felt like work to me; the insane level of management required to simultaneously macro/micro... I never enjoyed it. Currently enjoying the apocalyptic wasteland / occasionally broken mess that is H1Z1: King of the Kill
pjc50 10y ago
Simulators seem to be popular for this. Someone to be buying all those expensive train sim addons..
Baeocystin 10y ago
I play World of Tanks with my friends, and we're all in our 40's. It's basically an FPS for people with slower reaction times.

civilian 10y ago

I am so excited for my retirement. I am going to make ceramics and play Go, two hobbies I wish I could spend more time on. But I'm also going to dump a fuckton of time into videogames. I remember visiting my grandparents in their homes (and later, their retirement and/or nursing homes), and it felt... boring. I'm looking forward to having an active gaming life, and an active social videochat/groupchat life with any of my friends who are still alive.

hnal943 10y ago

I thought this, but I've moved on to board games. I don't like being tied to the television and it feels like it puts the focus back on my friends instead of the game.

Baeocystin 10y ago

Am 43. Grew up playing games. Not planning on stopping any time soon. Went through the 'I should be doing something better with my time' phase briefly, about ten years ago. Realized it was anxiety driven, not rational. Having fun is an intrinsic part of being human, and cannot be skipped without genuine mental health consequences.

problems 10y ago
I've sort of been fighting with this myself - a few years ago I started working full time and spending more time with friends. When I get downtime it's pretty much just turned in to playing games or watching TV - I barely have time when I feel motivated enough to start learning something new anymore. I taught myself almost everything I know about programming in downtime during my teenage and college years, but that sort of highly motivated downtime hasn't carried over so well now that so much of my time is occupied automatically. I think you're right and having actual downtime when you're doing something relaxing is a very good thing, but I can't shake the feeling I should be accomplishing more. I guess I'm just sort of disappointed that all my most motivated times seem to have sunk into other activities and now I don't get them to learn on my own. I don't know what to do about it. EDIT: You know, I don't know anyone else who feels obliged to spend their free time in some sort of "productive" way except developers. Maybe I should just ignore this whole thing and accept that development has for the most part went from a hobby to a job for me and that's okay. Spending time with friends and gaming in my free time are probably more relaxing and improve my overall happiness more than forced productivity would. Optimizing happiness is probably a better idea than optimizing productivity. Eugh, I don't know, I keep bouncing back and forth on this one in my head.
- Baeocystin 10y ago
  Some of my best ideas have come to me after hours of twaddling away with no particular goal in mind in SimCity. We as devs tend to seek optimal solutions as if they were a simple numeric quantity, where more/higher=better. We know this is not how things are, but the mental model is seductive in in its simplicity. What I have learned over the years is that it is the constant change between different forms of attention and focus that drive me to be my best. Which means time, real time, away from what I do for work. And when I return to work after doing so, I appreciate it all the more. You might be interested in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, Flow, if you have not yet read it. Although it has nothing to do with game playing per se, it helped clarify many aspects of my thinking when it came to why I felt I was 'wasting' time while gaming, and why I was wrong in that assessment. https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202 https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-...