Really, sweetie, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were me.
God I’m dying for the Sims 2. 11 more days!
(28 (for a little bit longer), female, TellMeI’mNotAbnormal)
34 — computer game player here. It seems pretty mainstream these days.
My husband and I play computer games, as well as XBox and Playstation2. (We’re eagerly anticipating the 14th when both Fable and Sims2 are released!)
I make no claims as to whether or not we’re normal.
48-year-old female here. I play video games of one kind or another almost every day. I play mostly RPGs, Final Fantasy, Dark Cloud, .hack, and the like. I also play games online.
There’s something very satisfying about coming home after a long day and slaying a stack of monsters who are named after the people who annoyed me all day.
I’m 39. I’ve been playing computer games almost as long as it was possible. There was an old mainframe game called lunar lander that I used to play when I would spend the day at the college where my father worked as a math teacher. Then, ANSI graphics games for the original PCs came out, like Omega, and Rogue. Then, the first fully graphical computer games I can remember, like Wizardy, and Wastelands…
Right now, I’m eagerly awaiting Halo 2, Zoo Tycoon 2, and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.
So I say it’s normal (I hope).
My dad is pushing 50 and loves video games. He doesn’t play nearly as much as I do, but every now and then he’ll latch onto a particular game and play it for a few weeks. We always had a computer in the house when I was growing up, all the way back to the Commodore 64.
Of course, he’s always been a geek. Played tic-tac-toe on punch cards. Loves sci fi of all kinds. I’ll tell you, it makes shopping for gifts easy. All I have to do is pick up a Star Trek game or any random space shooter and he’ll be happy.
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- I think much of it is if you grew up with them or not. I am mid-30’s and regularly play UT2004, but only have maybe a couple others I played a lot (UT and Half-Life) and only play them because they run on the computer I end up using for other things anyway. I “take a break from working” and kill some people every now and then.
- I think much of it is if you grew up with them or not. I am mid-30’s and regularly play UT2004, but only have maybe a couple others I played a lot (UT and Half-Life) and only play them because they run on the computer I end up using for other things anyway. I “take a break from working” and kill some people every now and then.
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- I started out playing coin-ops when I was young, but I don’t have much interest in any current coin-ops or videogame consoles. I did own a NES a long time ago but that was because at the convenience store where I worked, they rented NES games but employees could unofficially “borrow” the games by checking them out for free after the manager had left in the evening and bringing them back before he got in the next morning (he did know about this practice and it was allowed; if we didn’t beat him in we just had to pay the one-day rental fee). So I had access to 50-75 NES games that I could use for free–and of course, compared to the price of the console, the games were the expensive part. So it made sense then to buy a console. Instead of the $150 console that came with two games, I got the $90 one that had no games included.
- I don’t have much interest in games as it is now; I do like UT2004 because you can create your own maps, which I think is really cool to play with. And I have a couple videogames I bought that never got played at all: System Shock 2 is one that I bought because a number of other people said it was a really cool game. But I bought it during the time I was attending college because I found it on a bargain rack, and then never got around to playing it. So it is still unopened.
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I’m 65 and hate DOOM, but I still should get a star for knowing what the hell it is. However, there are games that I like to play. I also believe that seniors should be playing games. They will keep our minds alert as well as our hand eye coordination. So if you want to make a million or a billion, design a game for us old farts and market it on the above arguments. There isn’t a senior alive that doesn’t worry about losing memory or eye hand coordination.
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:smack: [sup]What were we talking about?[/sup]
28, almost 29, and I play videogames on an almost daily basis. I wonder if those who find the idea of an adult playing video games bizzare feel the same way about adults playing board or card games.
I’m 28 and own a GameCube, Playstation, Playstation 2 and a broken Xbox, I’ve been playing games since the late eighties.
Currently I’m going through SSX Tricky again. I’d be surprised if I didn’t still start the occasional game in 10 years time.
Not me. That’s such an alien concept, I can’t even begin to understand it.
I plan on becoming a lich, so that I can continue playing even after my hands are cold and dead, until I witness the heat death of the universe. Even that may not be enough to stop me.
The thing about computer games is that they’re still an emerging art form. Nobody knows what the cultural “rules” are yet. The OP’s colleague would have been right about 10 years ago, but he should realize that it’s not a question of age, it’s a matter of generations. The people who first started playing computer games are in their 30’s now; playing is perfectly consistant with their age group.
I’m 40, mother of two, executive-type and I LOVE video games.
I don’t care if it’s normal or not. 
BTW, I keep hearing about “broken X-boxes”. What’s up with that, are they just junk or something?
Normal or not, it’s cool!
It’s my own fault that mine is broken.
I’ve soldered in a chip so I could put a larger harddisk in it and use it as a mediaplayer (I practically never play games on it, only watch movies as my hands are not compatible with the Xbox controllers). It seems that one solder is a bit bad and usually I could make it boot by shaking it a bit, but now it’s apparently time to open it up and redo the solder as my “fix” stopped working
I’m 37 and I have PS2, X-Box and PC games. My wife is the same age and plays games too although see mostly sticks to pogo.com. Through no fault of my own I have been unable to play for a while but when I am able I am a Socom II junkie. And yes it is frustrating to get your ass kicked by a twelve year old.
I’m 34 and don’t play computer games (tho’ I sometimes long for those summers of long ago, replete with Capri Sun, Pudding Pops and hours of Atari . . . ;)), but how is it any less “normal” than an adult playing Scrabble or Pictionary or Dodgeball?
For the record, I’ve never been a fan of age-based prescriptivism in terms of behavior. I mean sure, there are some behaviors that could rightfully be considered “immature” for someone of a given age (like if you’re 34 and still throwing tantrums when all of the banana-flavored pudding pops are gone and your mom won’t go to the store to get you any more), but overall, I say if it ain’t hurting anybody, who cares if Mick Jagger still wants to shake his thang and have promiscuous groupie sex at age 97 (that is how old he is, right? ;))?
But I digress . . .
Point is, I say PLAY ON.
[QUOTE=Lobsang]
I would have thought most here would agree that these days it’s pretty normal for people as old as 30 playing doom3 or a playstation. Yet I have a colleague at work who I’d guess is in his middle fifties who thinks it’s utterly bizarre.
[QUOTE]
Not people as old as 30?!?!?!? Omigod, the very idea!
Sorry, Lobsang, that just made me laugh.
I know that in the social circles in which I move, I’m just about the only person I know who has no interest whatsoever in any kind of computer games. Never got into it, and no desire to, either. I don’t have any particular aversion to others playing them, and nor do I think they are weird. Takes all sorts, I reckon.
I’m a 36 year old female, by the way.
An adult that plays games?!
Its normal for me…and that’s all I care about 
What bothers me is this: if you play something interactive like a game…than something is wrong with you. But, if you sit and watch a television screen…its considered normal. WTF?
I think is all stems from the term “game”. I suppose some people have been raised with the thought that adults don’t play games. I wonder if these people would be more receptive if the term had always been “interactive television”…
My quite-adult SO and I spent half the weekend pouting because we couldn’t find our old Sega Genesis to play the original Sonic the Hedgehog. We’d rented the new Sonic Heroes for PS2 and wanted to reminisce. I was able to locate the Atari, however. But then the power went out 
My social groups’ ages range from 30 to 46, and everybody plays something. We’re a bit self-selecting though, as my socializing is based around tabletop RPGs and science fiction.