Can you ever be too old to game?
After celebrating a birthday earlier this month (in fact, while I was in Tokyo, so it will be a birthday I will remember for some time to come), I got all contemplative - as sometimes you do when you hit a certain age - about whether there comes a time that you decide to stop playing video games.
Don't worry, I haven't decided to give up video games and stop doing Game Junkie - I still love games as much as I did when I first started playing them a long time ago (those of you who have fond memories of the ZX Spectrum computer will relate to what I'm saying) - but will I still feel the same in two years time? How about in five years time? How about in 10 years time? Will there be a point when I will suddenly say: I'm over video games and it's time to do something else, some fresh, something different. Is there societal pressure that says: only a person of a certain age plays video games?
I don't have the answer, but I suspect that when it comes to the point that I no longer find playing games enjoyable, then that will be when I say enough is enough.
I already posted a while back asking how your significant other/wife/husband/dog feels about you playing video games and the responses were excellent (update: my wife is now more in favour of video games after playing Cooking Mama on the Nintendo DS at TGS and, more recently, after Rock Band arrived in the Game Junkie household. She loves playing the guitar) so now I'm going to put this question to you: how long do you think you will be playing video games for? Until you get sick of them or until someone has to prise the controller/mouse from your cold, dead hands? What keeps you playing video games?
Have a good weekend.
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Ill definately be playing games untill i dont enjoy them anymore, I dont see any problem with age and gaming, if you enjoy it play it!!
Like you, i started tinkering on a zx-80 when i was 8 years old. I'm 35 now and i don't see me stopping playing anytime soon. As i've grown older, i've seen that game designers, who have also grown older with me, making games for the more mature gamer in mind. I don't think this trend will stop. And if you recall the recent news articles, Wii's are being put in rest homes so I think you're never too old to play games, console, pc, card or board. Your dexterity may lower, but that can be replaced with experience, maybe a hint of wisdom thrown in there too. As long as they keep making them, i'll keep playing them.
Simple, until I die.
Which may be before the end of november as I am expecting Fallout3 to be so good, my arse will spontaneously combust
I don't think there will ever be a point at which I stop playing games. I already spend a -LOT- less on playing them as my money has other places it has needed to be spent as I have grown up and had a family but it hasn't meant not spending time or money on them. Video games are a source of entertainment and good ones have narratives as riveting as any program on TV. The one I would pull out as an example of this is Bioshock where the story is as important, if not moreso, as the gameplay.
Asking whether or not someone will ever be too old to game is a little like asking someone whether or not they will ever be too old to watch a movie or TV, listen to music or go for walks.
You're never too old!
As long as they cater for the casual gamer, and keep bringing original ideas and new genres to the table... ill keep eating them.
Just got rock band (full set) as im a big fan of the original playlist...i feel i have many years ahead of me.
My main fear is that I will develope arthritis or my thumbs will fall off as i get old and crumbly. Although inventions like that headband thing you were talking about that let you control games with your mind do offer a glimmer of hope (at the same time they sound a lot like hard work). I look forward to the day that the machines take over and we are all relegated to a brain-in-a-vat existence inhabiting a completely virtual world...
will you ever be to old to watch a movie?
I really hope not. I've been gaming practically since I was able to walk and so I'll be gaming until the end.
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I dont think there is an age limit to playing video games. As long as they keep making games that i can enjoy i will continue gaming, much to my girlfriends displeasure, until i am no longer able to play due to arthritis or some other dibilitating disorder hits me. i look forward to playing those games with my children and even grandchildren!!