This is also very likely due to older people seeing gaming as an affordable and enjoyable hobby, which would raise the average age. Gaming is the most accessible it has ever been, so it’d make sense.
Gaming never truly recovered after the 2003 late golden age and 2006 fall when the first microtransaction released. Sims 2, kotor, Jedi outcast, fable, dark messiah, command conquer, wh40k dawn of war, battle for middle earth, morrowind, fallout 2, icewind, baldurs, system shock, tw medieval 2, cod 2, neverwinter, half life, gta sa, civ 4, aoe 2- most are still better than modern equivalents except graphics and QoL
The rare brief time when the big money flowed and fuelled innovation instead of playing it safe and stale. Almost everything today is just a rehash of that era with slapped microtransactions on top
This is an absolutely absurd out of touch take. High quality games by indie devs is more common then ever, we are seeing a resurgence of story driven games that have ZERO MTX.
I got some news for ya pal, “gaming” is not Ubisoft and EA. For example, Sony’s exclusives: horizon, spider man, god of war, the last of us, uncharted, and that is ONLY SONY.
In the milsim genre there is a HUGE renaissance of games like ground branch, grayzone, six days in fallujah, etc. this is the case for many genres right now and has been for years at this point.
You are quite literally judging the ENTIRE fucking industry on a few big name studios and the shit they push out.
Putting that aside for a moment, even then, your take doesnt reflect reality. Sony is one of the biggest right now studio wise in console games and they’ve been bridging the gap to PC for years now.
In a shift from previous strategies, Sony has revealed a new focus for the PlayStation 5 that prioritizes increasing the amount of time users spend playing on the console, rather than solely concentrating on the quantity of game sales. This strategic change reflects an evolving consumer behavior observed during the era of the PS4, aiming to boost profitability through enhanced engagement within the PlayStation ecosystem
If anything, the big dogs are walking away from mtx and sales numbers and focusing on what makes good games that bring people back.
The man who heads PlayStation Productions and product at PlayStation Studios believes that the future of gaming will be about “immersive narratives.” In fact, Asad Qizilbash thinks developers will focus on emotional storytelling over visual fidelity in the future.
Which takes down your other stance about how it’s only about graphics these days. Again it’s not just the big dogs, have you seriously NOT seen the insane amount of extremely popular games that use retro styles? Years and years old like hotline Miami, or brand new like animal well, etc. it never stopped.
Video game dunkey’s BigMode studio is yet another great example of these concepts and priorities reaching popularity and approval
almost everything today is a rehash
You are simply telling on yourself here. We get it, you are not connected to where gaming is today, whether that be due to nostalgia or perhaps a hyper focus on a specific niche, but to judge the state of the entire goddamn industry based on that?
Bottom line: make ann effort to actually play some well received and highly regarded games just from the past five years and you’ll understand why your take is hollow.
My generation was the first to have a childhood with video games, so it’s not surprising we’re sticking with them. I certainly have no intention to stop playing them as long as I’m physically able.
Ya, not surprising. I’m in my late 40’ and game. My father was gaming in his 70’s until his death. My mother, also in her 70’s, plays Minecraft. Video games aren’t the domain of kids anymore. The kids who played them grew up and some folks started to take to them in their later years. They are just another form of entertainment now and not some nerdy, niche thing. Quit trying to gatekeep fun.
I wish this idea caught on to a larger portion of society. There’s a dating site that has questions you can answer and see what a potential match has answered, one of which was “are computer games childish?”
An unfortunately large portion of women (ages 30-45) who answered that answer “yes” :(
(I’m not looking for men so I don’t know how they respond, I wasn’t trying to be sexist lol)
think about the parents of 30-45 year olds and how they might have raised their sons vs their daughters, and also the clear pandering to teenage boys in videogames 20 or so years ago. there’s your answer.
thankfully both are changing with time. there are reactionaries who want to stop this change on both sides, but they will fail just like they failed before.
Im sorta surpised as even when I was in high school video games were something that was considered nerdy. Most had played them but it was considered a bit like comic books, cartoons, and toys. Something you grew out of. I would expect it to not be a major share until I am well over 55+. I though at first maybe it was just people getting new into it like mobile but the article says they make up 23% of the pc gamers and 11% of console (heck I don't even play console anymore). I wonder if some were influence by their kids?
I’m almost fifty, started gaming when I was a kid on Sinclair spectrum and BBC computers. Some of the figure is probably people who got into gaming later in life but some is just people who started early and kept going.
yeah but was it cool? Were most kids in high school gaming at your time? Im curious because im a bit over 50 so maybe 1989 or something was the floodgate year. I mean for 55+ to be such a large percentage it would mean a good percentage of the population itself must game in realtion to younger gen right. So I figure something close to 100% of teenagers game nowadays but when I was in high school it might have been under 10%
It seems very cool at the time. First game I remember spending lots of time on was probably Jet Set Willy, in the mid 80s. But yeah, some kids were playing but mostly only those who’s parents had computers. They were expensive and we weren’t well off at all, someone at church lent us one because I got into coding. But you’re right, it was probably around 10%. I would expect that figure to be higher amongst families with more money though probably not much higher.
I was actually the poor kid in a rich area so like my friend had a commodore and the game consoles as they came out (and his family was like average wealth for the area). Money was definitely not stopping most of the kids from being into video games. Arcades were very active to so nothing keeping kids from being into gaming by going to the arcades but again it was a crowd that had almost 100% overlap with the comic book shop.
Ive been playing rocket league since 2015 and I still play and I’m in my thirties. It’s so funny when people get toxic and immediately pull out the “ahh you’re a 12 year old” and then I say I’m in my 30s and it’s all “wow so sad to be playing games so old” get fucked kids the old people are here to play games and you can’t stop us.
I like still being in my gaming prime (28) and already being better than your average FPS gamer.
Top scoring multiple matches in a row to have someone call you a sweaty no-life teenager only to drop that you work 10 hours a day and can still make them look like they’d never touched a controller before is fun every time.
Shit, my dad was going 30:5 in BLOPS II at age 57, he’d wait to use his mic in between rounds to laugh at the people bitching about the sweaty kid. Suddenly this deep ass voice just saying “get good”
Why is it bad? The divide between people who play games on the phone and “real gamers” seems mostly cultural. From a research and financial perspective, there’s no reason to treat them any differently. Dollars are dollars, regardless of what platform they get spent on.
Mobile games are (mostly) pretty linear micro transaction hellscapes. But that is my opinion.
And I fully agree they (mobile games) have their market, which is fine for the people that play them. People can sit on the couch or on their commute and play some levels and spend the time.
The PC and console games are much more complex to create and draw in a completely different player base. It is more of a destination sort of speak.
Tossing these 2 on one pile means it is less clear how each of the markets are developing.
It is tempting to assume that older gamers exclusively play low-fidelity games on their smartphones. This is simply untrue.
While mobile is certainly the biggest part of the games market in terms of revenues, 55+ gamers account for 23% of monthly PC gamers and 11% of monthly console gamers.
it’s 100% that they count mobile games as “gaming” so grandma and grandpa playing candy crush and wordle are “gamers” now. They list 11% on console but even that seems high. 23% on PC probably includes wordle too.
It might, but PC would definitely have its share of older gamers. MMORPGs for an example, attract them. I believe the oldest I ran into in my Runescape days was over 70. Of course that’s if you believe peoples’ claimed ages.
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