This might seem obvious to some, but it’s still kind of sad. As people grow older, they tend to care about video games less according to Facebook data. Do you think this will happen to you?
The Older You Get, The Less You Care About Video Games?
Comments
49 responses to “The Older You Get, The Less You Care About Video Games?”
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zambayoshiI think in late teens, early twenties, your life is changing fairly dramatically. New people, places, jobs and activities are all crowding in on those already in your life. Something has to give, and you find yourself spending less time doing certain things.
Myself, I’m nearly 35 and my life has largely settled down. Family and work life are pretty stable, and I’ve given away other activities to be able to game on. I’m aware I’m missing out on other stuff, but I’ve made my choice and am pretty happy with it. I just accept I don’t currently have the time to do everything and I’ll have to save some stuff up for later life when kids are grown up etc.
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evilmonkeyUm… no, I’ve been gaming for about 3 decades, and video games are a bigger part of my life now than they have ever been.
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king_rocketSame here, although I think people tastes may change over time and if you don’t find games that match your changing interests you might thing your sick of gaming.
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distantdropI believe it already has happened I definitely don’t approach the Video Games with the same gusto I did as a kid and I can only imagine it’ll get worse.
Won’t be to long until I’m yelling at those damn kids to get off my lawn.
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ecto-1The older PEOPLE get… Its not the same person as they grow old, but rather different generations, each one exposed to different amounts of media.
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JakeExactly. But an artice saying ‘Older generations care less about video games’ isn’t exactly something that’ll cause a comment war and make everyone click it like we did.
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Mr UnicornGames data is based on what Facebook games people play. Apparently older people play less of those. The rest is all just based on conversation trends that they’ve analysed.
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Neo KaiserWhen you’re younger, you’re more open to anything and everything. Trying anything once, it’s why schools have a variety of classes. When you become a teenager your hobbies and interests start to narrow down and you realise what doesn’t interest you and what does. When you become an adult you pretty much a full understanding of what you like and what you could like. Only thing stopping you then is the lack of exposure to hobbies and interests you might have liked at a younger age, but didn’t know existed.
Every kid in Primary School was into videogames. But as time went on, their interests expanded into areas away from that, while others expanded into those areas, and what’s left are people who do truly enjoy them.
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negativezeroNo. The older the demographic on facebook you survey at the moment, the less likely they are to be interested in video games.
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transientmindI read an interesting theory that the ‘skinner box’ design may be having long-term impact on our tolerance for the artificially-induced dopamine hits we get out of the mini-rewards. It’s why no MMO is ever really as good anymore as the ones we first played… then overplayed.
Also: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife
Once you’ve seen behind the smoke and mirrors and are experienced and savvy enough to see how everything works, you can tell which devices developers are using to manipulate you, which you probably couldn’t when you were younger/less experienced. The awareness makes it work slightly less effectively.-
jethronerdlingerI would have said this is because games are mostly designed for kids. But reading your post, I agree 100%.
WOW ruined my patience for fetch quests and every other type of game filler.-
zambayoshi
That’s literally playing something ‘ad nauseum’. I think there’s even a kind of therapy that made people binge on the problem stuff so much they got turned off it.
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jlilienthalthis doesn’t prove that the older you get the less you care about video games, this proves that currently, older people don’t care about video games. Those twenty year olds could easily care just as much in ten years. This data would only mean something if it involved the same group of people for 50 years.
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GregorVorbarraYes, all this data shows is that currently older demographics are statistically less likely to play video games. This is as likely to be because they were never interested in the first place as because they lost interest over time. They’re comparing different sample populations.
It’s like saying that as people get older they become more interested in 60s era rock music. It’s more likely that younger people have had less exposure to that music and so are less interested.
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villainsoftexactly. this is just a snapshot of opinions graphed by age range. What they need to prove this point is a longitudinal study over many decades of the same test samples, but nobody has time for that.
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rossWell to an extent, I am already starting to care about games less and I am only in my early 20’s; but it’s not like I will stop playing them anytime soon though……
Besides, this is Facebook data; that kind of says it all doesn’t it?
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GregTUgh, Patricia, you suck at reading data. And thumbs down for linking to Gizmodo’s similar screwing up of the data rather than to the original article. BOOOO!
First, it’s not “the older you get”, it’s “the older you are”. The 40 cohort are the people who are 40 now, and the 20 cohort are the people who are 20 now. The 40 cohort were born before the videogame boom; of course they’re less passionate about them.
Secondly, the graphs aren’t tracking “interest” – they’re tracking how much we talk about the topics on Facebook. Older people are (on average) likely to be more sophisticated communicators than younger people, and to the extent they want to talk about videogames, they’re much less likely to be doing it on Facebook. You’re seeing modal shift of that discussion into other platforms. Videogames have many more forums on the internet for discussion than (say) transport, so once older people start to pick a platform rather than spray conversation everywhere, a smaller percentage of those platforms will be Facebook.
The original article, seeing as Patricia was too lazy to link it, is here:
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2013/04/data-science-of-the-facebook-world/ -
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jusking3888Gaming has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. I won’t be giving it up any time in the foreseeable future.
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ChazefI’ve never taken a statistics class but it doesn’t take a genius to know that even if these findings where credible, just because the current elderly people today aren’t as interested about video games as the younger people, doesn’t mean that as the young people of today grow old, they will lose interest. That connection could only be made if you went and did this survey to the same group of people over a very long period of time. Correlation =/= Causation foo.
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sirsamUm, no. According to those graphs older people today care less about video games than younger ones (haedly a news flash). The graphs don’t actually say anything about what will happen to this current generation as we get older.
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slackarseI’m already old, and no.
I do however care much less about Facebook games the older it has gotten, since I think I’ve now blocked about 99% of their mentions so they stop being so annoying.
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hanabiGreat points by those above. Its a snapshot of generations now, not of changes.
That said, i do think the easy access to games now via steam makes them less precious than they used to feel.
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j3si already stand on my porch with an M1 screaming at youngsters all while polishing my Gran Torino.
But seriously, im 24, a dad, a husband, full time job, living 10 hours away from extended
family (*babysitters*).
Games just don’t have that appeal to me like the used too.
2-3 years ago i would have stayed up all night playing games, but now would not dream of it.
I think current personal circumstances are what change opinions of games. -
strangeI’m 36 with two kids and I certainly don’t care less about videogames than when I first started playing them.
I think that because this article is based on “data” from Facebook, the more likely explanation is that the older you get, the less you start mentioning them on Facebook. And the less time you have to play them. -
regalI find that there is just less games out there that make me care. There are a few here and there that make me care though. Pokemon is still one of them for example.
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Bumbly BeeThe way I see it, there’s alot of contributing factors.
While things like work and social life often contribute to it, I would think It’s more of the difficulty factor in games that make one lose interest more.
Being an avid gamer in the past, I’ve found that if you’ve played a decent amount of games and of a diverse variety, you’ve basically played the same game at one point and can practically breeze though it, especially if the game isn’t as hard as an older title you may have played.
Games all fall under certain genres and it just comes down to how well the company either blends them or adds a new approach to it (motion controllers, interactive peripherals, art direction) to make a gamer have a bigger interest and hopefully added difficulty to it. -
goldenboot76Here’s some good advice I received from someone a while ago.
Patricia’s articles are their for click-baiting. Stay away from them.
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germinalconsequenceThough you clicked on it so it can’t have been that good advice. /facetiousness
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goldenboot76
I’m just providing a warning. I’m here to see the comments section. *grabs popcorn
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mikezombie777Getting older has made me appreciate games in a whole new way that kids simply can’t. I now care MORE about games than I did as a kid. My collection is as big as ever and the only thing I can say is that my taste in games has changed and I desire games of true quality. Not dull mainstream games that are the same thing year after year. I never liked RPGs as a kid but now I love them.
When I was a kid, Games like Dark Souls & Demon’s Souls would never have been appreciated or even played beyond the first boss. I find myself truly appreciating everything about the greats and the underdogs. From the game play to the art direction, A.I and anything in between. As a kid I didn’t care about anything beyond “hmm is this fun or not?”
Age has by itself has nothing to do with whether or not you enjoy games. It can be a variety of things from environmental factors to a lack of games which a truly interesting and stimulating for adults. It has been well established that the majority of gamers are over the age of 18. What’s kind of games are entertaining to adults is obviously going to be different to what’s entertaining to kids for a number of reasons.
This article is flawed. Age alone isn’t a determining factor – there are many things that MAY come with getting older which prevent some from enjoying games, but age itself is not a determining factor.
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CaserHasn’t happened yet – if anything I’m more into games than I was in my teens and twenties.
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riffbearYup. Been playing games since 82 “Atari” Hanimex, and the past few years I have lost allot of passion to play anymore.
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germinalconsequence
My interest in video games will never wither or die. Unless of course the current AAA market becomes the only market somehow. It’s most of the other things listed that I don’t care for much anymore outside of the need to know when it’s going to rain, or I need to take an alternate route to work etc.
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MashOMaticOnce a gamer always a gamer! I’m 45 and love them more. Had a few years off for kids, wives (yes plural) but now with kids growing up play them with the kids plus have more cash to buy the latest games and consoles. So not me still love the games… however, hate the face book.
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mandroidOlder gamer here, and whilst I may play less games, I am not less interested in them, nor play them less – I’m just more picky about what I play.
The latest cookie cutter versions of CoD/MoH/NBA/Madden tend not to get my singular focus, when there is supreme storytelling in the Bioshock series, or the great Coop in Borderlands games.Besides what the fuck would Facebook know about gaming ? Farmville isn’t a game.
The 40+ gamers were the ones that spearheaded the gaming boom with the C16/C64/Amstrad/Amigas/Spectrums, slaying dragons, looting gold and ruling kingdoms whilst Zukerberg was still being breastfed..
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matildamuffinatorI’d say I care a lot more about them as I’ve gotten older. I’m 25, finally have a fulltime job and can finally afford to spend money on games and consoles. I also spoke about them less when I was younger as I didn’t have many friends who were into games, but as I’ve gotten older and more comfortable with who I am I’ve kinda distanced myself from people who judge others on their hobbies.
That aside, I have a hard time fully trusting graphs based on Facebook data…
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melbournepooThe only reason I play games far less now is because my standards are much higher than when I was younger. The quality of games is hit or miss because of EA, UBISOFT etc… If I find a great game ill play the crap out of it and stop playing games until something good comes out. Also work, GF, eating, booze, sport and watching Porn takes a lot of your free time!
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BobIsBobTo be honest, I work in the industry and I won’t say that my passion for gaming hasn’t… diminished so to speak.
But it is more that how I view my gaming has changed. I want things that are more in depth and engaging than what I previously was happy with.
Problem for me is that most games are just the same old crap as they have always been! But when I come across something new and unique it’s the same as when I was a kid! -
gmanoI’m one of them. I used to be a super huge gamer.
I still game, but am not obsessed like before. -
villainsoft
I still like games as much today as I did as a teenager, although my tastes have definately changed. There was a time where I played every FPS that came out, but now (mid-30s) I never really play FPS and focus more on RPGs and platform games. I’m lucky enough to have no distractions in my life, so I get to do whatever my whims dictate.
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