age posts

These days, video game players come in all shapes, sizes, and most importantly, ages. No longer can you count on the single demographic to be simply the teenaged male; nowadays you'll see female players, kids of eight years and younger, adults of fifty and older, and representation from virtually every profession the world has to offer. At some point, playing video games broke wide, and now more people play than ever before.

Most games do seem to trend toward that 18 - 34 demographic, however, and there is a clear demarcation between general consumption games and games aimed at younger children, the majority of which appear to be educational in nature. The question arises: should this distinction still exist? Should there be games specifically for teens, or for middle-aged adults? What would these games look like, and is there any benefit to be had in their creation?

I played my first video game, Pong, when I was about five or six years old; long enough ago that I don't recall the exact year. The combination of visuals and reflexes hit me at precisely the right time, and it was all downhill from there. My imagination kicked in, and I virtually became the games themselves.

As I got older and the games became more sophisticated, my interest never waned -- I continued to play everything I could get my hands on, both at home and in the arcades. It was clear that this was a pastime that would continue to fascinate me the rest of my life. But I noticed that neither my mother, my uncle, or my grandparents ever so much as picked up a controller. They simply had no interest in video games whatsoever, while me, my friends, and my cousins couldn't get enough of them. Nowadays, the initial age of interest is skewing ever younger, while the non-players remain roughly the same age as ever. Is there a window of opportunity for games to be interesting to people?