My dad is a couple of years older than you and he's the one who introduced me to gaming on his Atari back in the 80s. We play Battle for Wesnoth semi-regularly together.
There was a space of about a decade where we didn't and honestly I regret that. We don't live close to each other but it's how we stay in touch.
Honestly, that and grilling (and eventually motorcycles, but I was already on my way out of rural nowhere when that happened) are the only things we bonded over. I have always had hobbies that kept me at arms length from "normal" people and my dad is the guy you'd think of if you thought of a regular dude born in the 60s. I'm still pretty weird (and happy about it), but it's nice that I can be close to him through gaming.
30s are rookie numbers. I'm 52 and still game regularly. I started out playing pong clones in about 1975 hooked up to my tv. I played a lot of zx spectrum games in the 80s, failed my degree in the early 90s because I spent far far far too long playing civ1 on my Amiga. Etc etc.
Same. I'm 35 and I've only been independent for 5 years as well. This is the new norm. Adulting is expensive. 30 isn't old; you're just starting your life.
I'll be 37 soon, I was doing well untill my motorcycle accident. Even in full gear a lot of stuff broke that shit aged me fast. That being said my best friend is 22 and I can still beat his ass at most games.
Damn! Ease off on the aging there, gramps. I'm 50 and I can still touch my toes without groaning! The only "old person noises" I make are exclusively of the "get off my lawn you whippersnapper" type. ;-P
I'm 46 and a PC gamer, but I don't give a shit what platform anyone plays on. This "PC master race" stuff is infantile bullshit and needs to disappear.
I know that some people take it ridiculously seriously, but for me, it's just a preference.
I have a Wii that I don't use anymore and a PS4 that I only use for playing Rock Band rarely, so it's not like I'm a real purist or otherwise extremist about it 🤷
PC master race is about knowing it's the best gaming platform, not about owning one. "it's not about the hardware on your rig, it's the software in your heart."
30s? My steam account is about to turn 20! My first computer was a C64 and my first console was an Atari 2600... I remember the video game crash... hell, I still have my copy of ET!
Yeah probably - I mean I just turned 50 and moved over to Lenny due to the likeness to the old internet forums and BB’s of the 90’s and early 00’s before the normies discovered the internet via social media…..
I am pushing 40 now and I doubt I'll ever stop gaming. I introduced my mom to Ragnarok online 2 decades ago. She introduced her dad to the game and they played together. My grandpa played that game until the day he died and he loved it. My mom still plays it too with the same group of people. This idea that gaming is a young person's thing.. is so weird. My mom is in her late 50ies and she and my dad started with playing Pong. Both my parents and my brother and I grew up with computers, consoles and games. We all love it. That's not something age will suddenly change. In about 20 years those same people will be typing posts like these themselves. ;)
indeed, gaming is becoming more of an "older" people hobby mostly because kids nowadays get bombarded with micro transactions and pay to win mechanics that don't really engage them as a target audience.
Once I attended a reto game convention and meet a kid who was like 14 or 15 who was really into retro games, mostly because those games didn't nag them with live services and bullshit as such. It really shifted my perspective about modern AAA gaming.
The fuck with this question. My youngest is barely 31. I guess I'm dust and fading memories. I will watch my anime and horror movies and shout at the clouds with an onion tied to my belt, fuck you very much
i played on PC but my dad's friends had an amiga so i played on it sometimes when i was about 5... I found PP Hammer a lot of fun and Altered Beast simply looked incredible.
Favourite Amiga games: Secret of Monkey Island 1&2, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Rick Dangerous 1&2, Pirates!, Flashback, Lemmings, Eye of the Beholder....just off the top of my head
Favourite now: The Witness, Braid, Portal, Obra Dinn, Papers Please, Fez, Talos Principle, BoTW, The Last Door...etc.
Satisfactory, Counter Strike, Fallout 4 (heavily modded), Assassin's Creed (still love Black Flag), Portal 1÷2 and of course every game of the Witcher series. This is a small fraction of the games I played in the last years but all I can remember for now 😅
My literal grandparents play video games. They were in their 70s. In fact, they were the ones who taught ME how to play, and my mother (who is not a gamer) remembers them always having the latest console when they were growing up.
50+. Play every chance I get. Don’t know why it would be surprising, other than Lemmy being an echo chamber of tech-minded younger people who forget my generation started out gaming with Atari and the like.
I'm 35 and my dad turns 68 this year. He had a stroke about 13 years ago that narrowly missed killing him and paralyzed half of his body (he recovered some use of his leg, but his right hand just hangs out).
He had to give up a lot of things, but I made sure gaming wasn't one of them. He plays with a foot pedal and a mouse, and still loves it.
He plays all of the fallout games on a loop, has a thousand hours on the Bioshock franchise, and we play Co-op shooters together sometimes. He has a bunch of other games, but he's super picky lol.
everywhere. thinking mostly kids play videogames is some boomer-ass take. SNES was 35 years ago... do you think people who grew up playing videogames in the 90s just quit one day? about three quarters of people who play videogames today are adults, and 40% are 35+.
How dare you not growing up like a boomer and not getting accustomed to linear television as your only source of joy, therapy and emotion avoidance? /s
It's somewhat based in reality, isn't it? I'm still gaming in my late 30s and most people I get to play with are on average 10-15 years younger than me. People leave the hobby with time, en masse, and almost no one my age seems to be joining. There are some games that let you ignore that more (single player, matchmaking. Although even in single player, what's the point of gaming, if you don't get to discuss it with most of your friends), but some are really difficult to continue playing (coop :().
Although even in single player, what's the point of gaming, if you don't get to discuss it with most of your friends
... The point is to... play... the game? I have exactly two current games that I play or talk about with friends. The others are all single player games that I play solely for the enjoyment of playing the damn game. Like, what do you mean, what's the point? This view is utterly baffling, just play it?
Yeah, most of the playerbase is young, as young people spend more time playing videogames.
I think the amount and maybe type of game change a bit, but that's about it. Ofc some people just stop, because there's always some people, but I don't think our generation (I'm roughly the same age) will leave out gaming as much as the previous one did. And I still know plenty of people from gen x who still game avidly. Relatively avidly, at least.
Gaming was more of a "kids thing" when we were young. Like a lot more. Now it's a viable career. Not a common or easy one, but probably more viable than say "racing-car driver" in the 80's.
No, it's not. Some adults wake up and trade video games for board games.
It's like having friends you can spend time with, for real, instead of just being a joke and without real social engagement. Regardless of how many subscriptions to a gorram MMORPG.
It's not like we're interacting now, because this is just text so ofc it isn't real engagement. What about split-screen party games? Those not "real engagement" either? So... where's the line? Because for instance for TTRPGS, especially for D&D, people definitely use tablets and phones while playing to keep notes / character sheets. What's the difference between an online session of D&D and an IRL one? Sharing a bathroom?
All of your rhetoric sort of strongly implies you can't be have "real social engagement" with friends who aren't in your immediate vicinity. To say that in this era of technology is a pretty strong tell you don't have any friends outside your small town, I guess.
Have you ever tried telling a partner that texting and phone calls (or even video calls) aren't "real engagement" and "it's a fucking joke" to think it is?
"My preferred choice of recreation has more pieces and doesn't use electricity, so it's clearly more mature."
So, how many more generations before people finally escape Nintendo's crafted stereotype that games are for young boys? Never? Fantastic. I'll try not to think about how I'll magically be too old for games in 7 months.
The reason kids have the games they have is because we were playing games in the 80s on Atari 800s that you had to type into basic from Compute magazine
I mean this purely as an observation, but: almost certainly literal child detected
I'm in my mid 30s, and the people in my extended social circle around my age that don't fire up a game at least once or twice a week are few and far between, even including the harried, busy, regular not-yet-grand parents, haha
Quick edit: imo, the ones not playing video games at my age (again, in my area) are generally the ones who seem the least like they have their shit together. It's weird but it's a thing I've noticed
I mean, if they are 30 and haven't adapted to how society is yet, its not surprising they havent got their shit together. We grew up alongside modern tech growing up, if you've been avoiding technology till now, its exceedingly hard to function in our current society
I grew up playing video games in the 80’s - of course I still play video games even though I turned 50 this year.
I swear the younger generations forget gaming has been around for a LONG time long before they were born, also that people don’t change what they enjoy doing just because they get older…..
I have a plan to develop a standalone wow pserver that's all set up with directions on how to do everything so my wife, kids, whoever can plop my dimentiated self in azeroth where I can't get lost.
I'm 38 and never plan to stop. Of course, I met my wife through World of Warcraft, and we game together most nights. My parents still play games in their mid 60s, too. I remember a kid mocking my dad for gaming at 40 when I was a kid. I imagine that guy is doing the same thing now.
Not the story on how beating Radahn was your own personal Vietnam War again, grandpa! We definitely all believe you beat him on your 3rd try. Now go back to bed.
It's so good lol, no drama, just people enjoying a game they love. It's hard to get people in for things consistently sometimes because life and family happens but I guess that's the price you pay.
You can have my game controller when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. And I'm not alone. We are many. We are legion.
You've heard of dementia villages that mimic old city neighborhoods? Gen-X is gonna need that to look like a mall. A video arcade would make sure over half of them never try to leave1. We're not done gaming, not by a longshot.
1 - The rest are going to tend to cluster up in the food court or Tower Records.
40 here. Minecraft is my main but I play others too, like Horizon 5, balders gate 3, stardew valley (mad respect for the Dev), and a few others. I gave up cod after warzone came out.
I'm in my early 40s and still do a bit. Mostly, between a fulltime job, recently buying a house, and farming, I've not had time to play much. I did start BG3 but moved in the midst of it and haven't touched it in months (I'm at the first hub in whatever act has the darkness.... Act II, maybe?) I'd love to actually go back to playing some of the games I loved from the late '80s and early '90s since some of those are much easier to pick up and put down. I did play a little bit of TF2 again recently after at least 5 years (probably more) of not really playing it. This winter, I might pick BG3 back up in between house projects.
I remember going to college when I was 17 and meeting a 30-year-old student and thinking she was so old. That was almost 40 years ago now. OP, give it a few years and you might want to rephrase the question. Oh, and Star Trek on the Commodore PET was where I started.
I haven’t been playing a lot lately, but today I connected my VR headset back up so my nephew could play it. I think it’s going to pull me back in for a little bit. It’s tethered to my PC but it has oled panels with great contrast (og Samsung odyssey). It’s been years since I used it, so some of the captivating novelty felt like it was back.
I played almost nothing but VR games in ‘18-‘19, including a 200 hour Skyrim VR play through. I do not tire of it as quickly as most, and I even still have to play through the second half of HL Alyx.
I’m in my mid 40s. Those of us in The Oregon Trail Generation got to watch video games grow up alongside us. Old pong and Atari games already exist, then the NES comes out when you’re in kindergarten or first grade. You read about the SNES in Nintendo Power later in elementary school before it hits. Then the N64 comes out when you’re a teenager, and if you’re lucky you can drive yourself to the store to marvel at Mario 64 at a kiosk in the electronics section.
And that’s just Nintendo. There was a whole different kind of progression on the computer side.
Yes, that's also me. And I'm always trying to get more people playing. Been having one-off weekend blasts with my girlfriend and her sister with EDF5, Tekken 7 and other games.
They also got a taste of Overcooked. The yelling at each other was glorious
I think Facebook is exclusively for old people. No one who is younger uses it. The one exception is to take to grandparents.
Ok I'm bring harsh but as far as I can tell a lot of the older generation fails to create good memes that aren't just a screenshot of something funny. I miss r/memes
I'll be 30 this year and see no reason to stop, nor do most of my friends around my age. Most people stopping around my age do so because they have kids and therefore barely any time or energy.
I'm 38 and play a variety of video games. Currently alot of WoW on my private server. But I might be dropping WoW for awhile in favor of focusing on the new Path of Exile league.
Dad got me started on his Intellivision (early-80's), got my own Atari 2600, first computers C64 and Tandy 1000, then a Nintendo-everything guy until now having a Playstation, Xbox and Switch for as many rooms of the house.
These days Rocket League is the best to play during remote audio meetings, 'cause you don't need sound and it's 5-10mins a game, but COD, GoW, Zelda.* and Mario.* would still get a thrashing when the girlfriend's at work.
I'm currently playing Borderlands with my friend in the UK every Monday morning. In the past we have played borderlands 2, borderlands 3, tiny Tina's wonderland, Diablo 4, Grim Dawn, city off Heroes and many more.