![]() “They go, ‘Young guys play games,’ and then they make games for young guys and then guess who plays the games they make?” “The game industry had and maintains a constructed idea of the player that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Pearce says. ![]() “They want these types of experiences, but at the same time everything is from a power fantasy that is a very juvenile power fantasy too,” De Schutter says.Ĭelia Pearce, a professor of games design at Northeastern, says the issue goes back to what kinds of games are being created and who is in the room when those decisions are being made. Many of the industry’s biggest games like “Call of Duty” and “Assassin’s Creed” are rated M for “mature,” but don’t necessarily fully explore what it means to provide a mature experience outside of violence and profanity. The content of many AAA games also doesn’t necessarily appeal to an older audience. In recent years, major strides have been taken by some of the biggest names in the industry to make games more accessible, but there is still work to be done, De Schutter says. The problem isn’t that older adults aren’t interested in these games from 50+ players it’s that there are significant accessibility challenges that make it hard for them to enjoy these games in the first place.Ĭhris Martens wants to make it easier to create video gamesĬontrols can be complex and tutorials that are meant to onboard new players can be unintuitive. But the majority of older adults are playing popular mobile games, puzzle games and other kinds of “casual” games that are typically more accessible and that players of all ages flock to.ĭe Schutter says there is also a smaller portion of older adults who enjoy playing first-person shooters and action games. games revenue for that year, it’s an area of potential for an industry obsessed with growth.ĭe Schutter called the AARP Games Summit, which he presented at, a “historical milestone” for the conversation around older adults in games but acknowledges there is still work to do.Įven now, when people inside or outside the games industry talk about games for players who are 50 years or older, they limit it to health and brain games, De Schutter says. Although it’s a fraction of the $35.4 billion in U.S. According to a 2019 report from AARP, players who were 50 years old or more spent $3.5 billion on video games in the first half of 2019 alone. Older adults are already playing games and, importantly for the industry, spending lots of money on them too. “Do you feel when you’re 30 you know everything you need to know? Do you feel when you’re 40 that you’ve met everyone there is to know? Do you feel when you’re 50 that the world stopped turning? Of course not. “If you look at all the literature that’s out there on games, games are how we learn … and all of a sudden once you’re 16, you need to stop doing that?” De Schutter says. The majority of players, 38%, are between 18 and 34 years old, but that doesn’t mean older adults aren’t playing the latest Zelda game and getting something meaningful out of it. However, the games industry still routinely ignores or fails to design games with older adults in mind, says Bob De Schutter, a game designer and associate professor at Northeastern University. Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University and Northeastern University Photo Bob de Schutter, associate professor of game design at Northeastern, and Celia Pearce, professor of game design at Northeastern. when cross-checked with numbers from the Entertainment Software Association. And this isn’t an insignificant piece of the gaming audience.Īccording to AARP, there are more than 52 million people over the age of 50 playing video games, which accounts for almost a quarter of all players in the U.S. Almost half of people aged 50 and older play video games, according to a recent report from AARP, and almost half of those people said they play daily. ![]() An organization focused on advocating for people in the 50-plus demographic talking about video games, a medium typically thought to be for younger people?īut, for AARP––and the games industry––holding the summit actually makes perfect sense. ![]() In April, AARP held its first Games Summit at its headquarters in Washington D.C., and for many people outside the video game industry, the event might seem like a head-scratcher. ![]()
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