ResearchThe Graying Gamers
In browsing community gaming forums the other fine day, I was struck for the dozenth time (I've counted) at how the majority of the participants were young enough to be my kids. Seems almost unfair. We were there first. We were in arcades spending our hard-borrowed quarters to play vector-graphics Star Wars and gobble dots with a hero who resembled nothing but a hungry tennis ball. We were the ones hooking our Ataris up to our black-and-white fuzzy 12-inch TVs to sit and play video pong for hours on end. And now here I am, a codger.
Well, if I'm a codger, then I'd better start acting like one. I prowled around looking for codger-like activities to engage in. I noticed a couple of kids playing on my lawn. Opportunity! I came to the door brandishing my cane... I don't use a cane... I turned and grabbed a broomstick and came back brandishing it as I opened the door and sucked my lips over my teeth so I would sound gummy and yelled, "Hey, you young whippersnappers! Get off of my lawn!"
The kids looked up from their trucks. They looked at each other. One of them spoke. She said, "Dad, are you writing video game articles again?"
The gaming community encompasses a wider age demographic with each passing year. In our household, we parents play alongside our kids. What a far cry from previous generations when parents questioned whether video games would be harmful to kids. We game-generation parents know better. Games develop hand-eye coordination, stimulate some critical thinking skills, and familiarize you with technology. We older gamers may have spent our youth hopping through Donkey Kong, but many of us grew up to become technology-based entrepreneurs. Raised in arcades, we grew up to build Silicon Valley.
Today's generation of console games, being namely Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, or Xbox 360 hearken back to many concepts from the earliest gaming days. But the improvements are pushing forward. Nintendo's new Wii control, which I'm starting to think of as a wand, is a stunning new method to get used to. But luckily, you can still turn it 360 degrees and use it like an old Nintendo NES controller. The PlayStation will be innovating the modern Linux operating system, but that's running in the background; you'll barely notice it unless you go looking for it. The Xbox 360, like all Microsoft systems, brings you along gently step by step; there is a reason why Microsoft has a reputation for being easy to learn.
More important is the content. There's only so many times you can live out the fantasy of being an Apocalyptic lord of destruction dealing death to a hallway full of zombies. Sporting titles like Madden NFL and NBA Live are there for the couch jocks. Golden oldie games have survived into the present, incarnated but still recognizable: Quake 4, Sonic the Hedgehog, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The gaming scene still has room in it for all of us, parents and children together.
One only wonders where the gamers will be when they're senior citizens. Will retirement homes be crammed with consoles and arcade machines, while we play Tetris into our twilight years? A funny thought, but I'm not there yet; not before I've had practice. Now, where's my Geritol?