When will the graying of gamers reach critical mass?

[SimplyCosmic]

In a time in which the annual profits of the gaming industry rival that of Hollywood, when soccer moms play The Sims, mundane sit-coms have occasional gaming references, and the local group of guys are just as likely to meet up on sunday to play the latest sports console title as they are to gather to watch the big game, videogames have become relatively mainstream.

Except in the mind's eye of the populace, which still collectively thinks of games as children's toys, despite how often they partake in the hobby.

Now, with people who were fifteen when the Atari 2600 hit now turning fourty, at what point do you think that the growing number of older adults who have been accustomed to the idea of videogames being as mainstream entertainment as the latest movie release, will get to the point where it reaches enough critical mass that the population in general finally completely embraces games as mainstream? Or will it ever?

[Brian Koontz]

Games as mainstream? Eh, I don't know. Maybe 10 years.

Rock 'n Roll began in the '40s and became mainstream in the '60s, right?

That damn Rock 'n Roll. Devil music I tell you! Why... just listen to the lyrics! We should ban it before it corrupts the youth! Big Band stuff is fine, Jazz is fine... why can't the kids listen to that?

Shut the fuck up, Lieberman Sr.

***

Note: Unlike Rock 'n Roll (which is a kind of music) computer games aren't really a *kind* of anything... they don't have an easy precedent to make it easy for them to become mainstream.

[Denice Cook]

Gaming with graying temples has already reached critical mass in my household, you just can't see it on my end thanks to the wonders of Sumina, the hairdresser/goddess. :wink: My 8 1/2-year-old is the sole keeper of the non-grey gaming flame.

And four miles away lives my retired, completely bald, gaming aficionado father, who would tell me to quit complaining if he read this as he is also having problems with his reflexes nowadays...

I suspect it is already close to reaching critical mass; maybe older folk don't talk about gaming in public as much as the kids do, though. 8)

[JP]

That damn Rock 'n Roll. Devil music I tell you! Why... just listen to the lyrics! We should ban it before it corrupts the youth! Big Band stuff is fine, Jazz is fine... why can't the kids listen to that?


Jazz WASN'T okay for the previous generation. The saxophone was the devil's instrument, remember? Anything newfangled that's embraced by the younger generation will be scorned as a corrupt or hedonistic influence by the older generation. Rinse, Lather, Repeat, History.

[XPav]

As Douglas Adams said:

I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema, radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

1) everything that;s already in the world when you;re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you?re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it?s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile phones to work out how old you are.

[awdougherty]

I thought I read somewhere that the average age of a gamer is late 20's. I guess it all depends on when we go gray (27 myself)

[XPav]

And depends on the definition of "gamer".