Poll: Giving up gaming because you're old

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Manji187

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Jan 29, 2009
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I think I'll eventually revert to books and movies, unless the writing in games drastically improves. Games are just more and more failing to hold my interest.
 

k3v1n

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Sep 7, 2008
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I'm never going to stop gaming. What will happen eventually, is that I won't be able to play as much as I'd like to due to priorities and obligations.
 

Girl With One Eye

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Jun 2, 2010
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I'll still be gaming when I'm 94 and pushing the grankids off the PS51 or whatever console at that time.
 

srm79

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Jan 31, 2010
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My very first experience of online gaming was in about 2003 when I picked up a cheap copy of Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator at around the time I got my very first internet connection. I clicked on the "Play it on the ZONE" button and within a couple of days had been kind of "adopted" by one of the clans ("squadrons" in the world of online air combat sims). They guy who ran it was in his late 70's, and one of the most active members.

In fairness, he didn't actually join any games that weren't purely intra-squadron, and the odd inter-squadron arranged game. By his own admission he wasn't always able to keep up with the "young guys", although I find in general there are not many kiddies in the world of online flying, and the ones there are tend not to be of the potty-mouthed XBOX Live variety. Most players are anywhere between their early 20's and late 50's.

Without wanting to generalise too much, I think that the nature of the gameplay - long periods of inactivity and managing the aircraft systems, combined with a few frantic moments of adrenaline pumping combat, closing with an opponent at hundreds of miles per hour, then trying to keep track of everything going on in a 3 dimensional battle space - appeals to a type of gamer who was brought up with games that were often more complicated and sophisticated in pure gameplay terms.

I don't think you grow out of gaming. You just stop being mainstream. Today's mainstream fashions and trends in gaming are tomorrows niche market. A lot of people stop for other reasons; it's hard to fit gaming around a family and a job too, but I don't know anyone who ever stopped because they thought they were too old.
 

Assassin Xaero

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Jason Rayes said:
I recently had an argument with a friend where I completely disagreed with his opinion. He was convinced that after a certain point you have to give up video games, as he put it "When you get old a switch goes off in your head and you just change, you want to do gardening and lawn bowls and things like that. Trust me, you won't want it to happen but it will happen". Apart from thinking he was an idiot, my counter argument was as follows. There was no magic switch that went off in their heads, an 80 year old pottering in their garden grew up in a time, not only before video games, but before television. If they wanted electronic entertainment they had the radio. They don't have the history of the current generation who have grown up with technology as a part of their everyday lives.

I for one intend to game until my hands are too arthritic. By which time I hope we can control games with the power of our minds. Which may suck if I'm senile.

So what do you think, will you give up video games and take up lawn bowls and knitting when you start getting grey hair?
For me, it is a time issue more than anything. I'm usually in bed around 10-11, then work 7am-4pm, so I have about a 6 hour window there of free time on week days. Also have to make dinner, do other misc things in that time, and do other things with my life. For example, yesterday I was home for maybe 10 minutes after work, then went out until about 11. My computer (which I mostly play games on) hasn't been on in a few days. Its probably more of a "lack of time" thing than a "lack of interest", unless gaming is just a fad for whoever it is.
 

JasonKaotic

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Mar 18, 2009
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Nah. I plan to start collecting once I start getting enough money to do it, and there's no way in hell I'm just getting rid of it all when I get old.
 

Jason Rayes

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Sep 5, 2012
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Assassin Xaero said:
For me, it is a time issue more than anything. I'm usually in bed around 10-11, then work 7am-4pm, so I have about a 6 hour window there of free time on week days. Also have to make dinner, do other misc things in that time, and do other things with my life. For example, yesterday I was home for maybe 10 minutes after work, then went out until about 11. My computer (which I mostly play games on) hasn't been on in a few days. Its probably more of a "lack of time" thing than a "lack of interest", unless gaming is just a fad for whoever it is.
See, this sort of thing is completely understandable. Like most people with jobs and responsibilities you don't game as much, not due to lack of desire, but due to other commitments. In the long run my question was more to do with actual old age and gaming, this situation you mention is one I'm familiar with from my own experience. But when Im older and I have more free time, I definitely intend to do some catching up. I certainly won't be taking up lawn bowls or quilting.
 

Judgment90

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Sep 4, 2012
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I won't give up gaming if I turn old, but if there isn't any good-quality games out when I become old, I may think otherwise.
 

MopBox

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Sep 7, 2012
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I think there was a time when this may have been true for a lot of gamers who were safely in their teens at the time of the console wars in the early nineties. It's reasonable to think if someone was 13 or 14 at the time when the Super Nintendo was released might have look down the road at the Nintendo 64 and thought that they had out grown the hobby. These days however, the media has changed pretty wildly and steadily lurching into the mainstream culture. In another ten years or so this will be like asking us if we ever thought we'd outgrow the movies.
 

Jason Rayes

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Sep 5, 2012
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I notice quite a few people have said "If the games are still good". Ever since Ive been gaming since the early 80's there have always been some games Ive been interested in. Even in these days of corporatism there are still good games being made. Indeed with the rise of the indie developer over the last few years now is probably the most interested I've been in gaming for some time. Dungeons of Dredmor, FTL, Endless Space, those are just a few of the awesome indie titles that have been keeping me busy. Even in the mainstream there are titles that have given me huge amounts of entertainment Darksiders II, Arkham City, Saints Row 3, Skyrim...even the controversial Mass Effect 3 was a game I enjoyed a lot. As long as there are creative people (And lets be honest they have existed since the first man painted on a cave wall and they aren't likely to go away soon) they will find a way to make creative games, whether independently via things like kick starter, or even within the current publishing system.

Edit: I know, I'm optimistic, it's a hobby.
 

toadking07

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Sep 10, 2009
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Here here! I saw you're never too old to game! Will I still play Halo when I'm old (80+) not likely, I'll probably have moved on to game that are more thought provoking, or at least don't rely on such knee jerking response times. I know right now as a college graduate I have less time to play video games than I did as a middle schooler and the games that are interesting me these days aren't the same as back then.

I don't think you grow out of gaming, unless you decide to, you just grow in your gaming tastes.
 

MopBox

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Sep 7, 2012
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snowplow said:
As adult responsibilities set in, leisure time decreases, so you have to carefully pick and choose what you want to do with your time. I'm not saying games aren't worth playing, some certainly are. But with careers, spouses, possibly kids, time becomes a rare commodity. After a hard days work, some people just don't want to deal with screaming 12 year olds online, or with ME3's shit ending, or with Diablo 3's ebay, etc.
Don't play trilogies?
 

Moonlight Butterfly

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Mar 16, 2011
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I'm 30 and I'm not going to stop gaming any time soon.

I don't plan on having kids and a boring ass husband who doesn't let me game though so there's that.
 

F'Angus

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Nov 18, 2009
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I think when you get older, start a family, get a full time job, get nagged at by the wife, not being allowed to play violent games in front of kids etc... you just stop having the time to play as much as you want so you turn to other things.

Plus they'll probably bring in some new fangled game system in sometime in the future that'll be just to confusing for our old minds to work so we won't bother.
 

mattaui

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Oct 16, 2008
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The idea that 'real life' is something that happens to you that makes you like games less is a misconception. Now, will real life prevent you from gaming 'till dawn whenever you want, or require that you actually spend disposable income on something other than games? Yes. Will real life give you more and more commitments and responsibilities that will cut into all your free time? Yes.

I've yet to meet a person who was a dedicated gamer in their youth suddenly give up games because they no longer had the time to play. They definitely give up gaming -as much-, but that's not nearly the same thing.

I've actually met several people who weren't gamers when they were younger, but have come to enjoy the hobby as an adult, because their adult gaming friends got them into it. And no, not just something on the Wii or on a mobile platform, but strategy games and even MMO raiding.

It's a matter of what you decide to make time for. I do game a bit less now at 35 than I did in my teen years, but it's not because I'm any less interested in gaming.
 

ninjaRiv

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Aug 25, 2010
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Fuck that shit! I'm gonna be playing games at 102! A nurse will be carrying away a bowl of old man poop while I play the latest console.