The age of gamers are getting older and older. The technology makes it so addictive.
My grandfather who is 75 LOVES gaming…haha!
You should see him…he really gets into it.
My 86 year-old MIL is a gaming fool online. Sure, it’s Contract Bridge, but it’s still a game and it’s still online. And she plays for blood.
Folks playing games to pass time & amuse themselves goes back at least as far as recorded history. And probably well before that. The only thing which is different is that early computer games were really lacking in the social aspect which is part & parcel of most folks’ ideas of recreation. Which is why they weren’t all that popular with grown-ups when first introduced.
So now computer-based games are catching up to traditional ones in providing a soccial aspect as well as a competitive aspect. Yes, they’ll go far.
Television is going to reduce in stature to at least the extent radio has reduced, probably further, and gaming is a big part of the process that’s reducing it.
As of 2008, the median age of American TV viewers was 50, and there is no force pulling the age back down; in fact, as of 2010, the median age of the viewers of all the Big Three networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) was 50 or higher, with CBS at 56, ABC at 52, and NBC at 50. Fox has a median of 46, having started the 2000s at 35. (Why is 50 such a magic number? TV advertisers mostly target the 18-49 demographic, when people are both flush with disposable income and still likely to change their brand preferences. Once a show starts pulling in people who are mostly older than that, its existence is threatened.)
As I’ve said before, just as the Boomers failed to give up their TVs and switch to radio when they became parents, the Millennials are not going to give up the Internet or video games and switch to TV when they become parents.
Back in EQ, long before WoW, one of my co-workers just LOVED playing a female Dark Elf, and he milked it for everything it was worth. As he was a mechanic-type, quite grizzled, but with an obviously fantastic sense of humour, it was a little disarming when he’d jokingly act like his sexay, gold-digging female toon in real life…just…those words…and that voice…omg. It was SO worth the laughs. :p:p