Well this is interesting: According to the Entertainment Software Association, a gaming industry trade group, the age of the average video gamer has increased dramatically in recent years, with a sharp uptick in female players also noted. This helps to explain my 58 year old lady neighbor was up til two in the morning playing the new Tiger Woods PGA Tour game when it came out a few weeks ago (True story.) She’s obsessed.
According to ESA’s statistics, the average video-game player last year was 37 years old (like Sharp). That’s up from 30 in 2004.
Forty-two percent of players were women. And nearly half (47%) of the online games people reported playing could be categorized as “casual” — puzzles, trivia, board games, card games and the like.
More “hardcore” titles will always be in demand and “the industry has answered that bell time and time again,” Taylor said. “But it’s an industry that has expectations beyond just that audience. Any more, if it has a screen, it’s going to have games.”
The piece goes on to note how many younger gamers aren’t exactly thrill by the idea that there moms and dads are being drawn into game by casual games. Nothing like The Olds to come in and make something utterly uncool, eh?
Among diehard video-game enthusiasts, the rise of casual games has caused resentment in some quarters. On CNN Tech, any passing mention of FarmVille brings waves of fury in the comments section.
A story from E3 on mobile favorite “Fruit Ninja” coming to Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect system prompted angry responses. Among them: “E3 is currently going on and THIS is the crap that mainstream media decides to write to the public about? How about talking about real games rather than app crap.”
“I think sometimes, a lot of the people who are in the old-school mentality of hardcore gaming feel a little threatened with what’s been happening over the past two or three years because it was, to them, almost this secret world,” IGN’s Blevins said. “It’s like a ‘We don’t want you in our clubhouse’ mentality.”
Old people…you’ve come a long way, baby!