“DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes”

There’s a radio station here that plays music that no one has ever heard of. And of course, someone’s got to have heard of it at some point, but the bottom line is that it’s definitely not mainstream. Anyway… listening on the way to work this morning and I heard this song titled “DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes”. For those of you who haven’t heard it, basically the song was about the fact that some things never grow old and even though the artist was 28 (I have no idea who the artist was, for the record), he still enjoyed comic books and milkshakes. It started me thinking about age demographics in games.

For the most part, when I’m playing games I tend to gravitate towards the older alliances/guilds. This tends to be because I can stand to be around them easier and also they’re usually much more laidback. So many times in the younger guilds, if you’re not up to snuff (that’s the technical term of course) then you’re reviled, ridiculed, etc until you’re back up to speed. The older guilds that I’ve been a part of have been much more forgiving, much more relaxed, and in general much more helpful.

Anyway, my point is that there most certainly are older gamers out there. Which, to be honest, surprised me at first. After having dealt with so many guilds/clans that were full of whiny 12 year olds, I moved back to MUDs. This was due to the fact that people on there tended to be more mature, and much more able to have an interesting, meaningful interaction with me. When I finally pushed back into mainstream graphical MMO’s, I was lucky enough to find a good, solid mature guild in Guild Wars (which was my main game when I came back to graphics).

As it turns out, there’s more people over the age of 30 playing games than I had originally thought. People seem to have the idea that kids will play games through their high school and college careers (at least undergrad work) and then miraculously get “cured” from gaming and move on with their lives. However, I’ve been seeing more and more people still in the gaming scene, though not nearly as much since they do seem to focus on their real lives much more (which is a good thing, I will say). What keeps them in the hobby of gaming?

As I’m getting older (just over 20ish now), I notice that the desire to play games will never really go away. It’s definitely receded under the pressures of life, job, family, and school, but I can tell that I’ll never want to give it up entirely. I’m also much more into gaming for the social aspect than for the games themselves. When I find a game that I stick with for any length of time, it’s usually because I’m playing it with a great group of people. Also, as the years progress, I find my viewpoint on games changing more and more to something which may resemble academic interest and social enjoyment.

It would be interesting to have a massive poll of all gamers and see why they play games and if their reason for doing so has changed as they grew older. Also, comparing the numbers of how many older vs. younger gamers there are out there. Furthermore, how many of the older gamers are content with board games over video games.

I imagine the numbers would be quite interesting.

~Obsrrver

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