Paper Abstract - Marinka Copier

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PLAYING WITH THE FUTURE:
DEVELOPMENT AND DIRECTIONS
IN COMPUTER GAMING

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ABSTRACT

Is Gaming Just for Kids? Elderly People do Play Games!

Marinka Copier

The elderly are reputed to be one of the fastest growing internet users. But do they also play games on their computer? According to the ISDA, 30% of the console gamers and even more (39%) of the PC gamers are 36 and up. So gaming is not just for kids. For half a year now I've been researching elderly people (50 and up) in the Netherlands who play computergames. It's a qualitive research in which I researched the games they play, the way in which they talk about playing games and what kind of social activities they develop around the playing of games. In this paper I would like to present the outcome of this researchproject 'Elderly people playing games'. I will also talk about the positive effects (emotionally and physically) of game playing for the elderly.

The most common statement is that older gamers tend to go for the more cerebral type of (PC) games such as Riven, Myst, Bridge and Chess. Although indeed most of my interviewees played Bridge, Chess, puzzle- and roleplaying games, some of them also played shooters like Doom. Elderly gamers don't regard themselves as 'gamers' they simply see themselves as people that like to play a game on the computer. They obtain their games mostly from family or friends. The older gamer also plays the games that come with Windows or the shareware are cheaply buy at bookstores or supermarkets.

The rapidly growing games industry mainly focusses on young people. In the games themselves as well as in advertisements the elderly can barely be found. The older gamer even rarely visits gameshops. The industry seems to think that older people don't like Tomb Raider or Tekken. Obviously there are the sport games like golf. But what else would they like? If it was left to the developers it would propably be Gardening or Shopping. Some have suggested that if there where a community of elderly gamers, then maybe the game developers would be more aware of the likes and dislikes of the older gamer. Unfortunately the elderly gamers in the Netherlands don't seem to be united yet. With this paper presentation I hope to raise a discussion among players and game developers on the elderly gamer.

Drs. Marinka Copier (1976) is historian and junior researcher at the Centre for Gender & Diversity and the International Institute of Infonomics which are both part of the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. 'Elderly people playing games' was a short research-project which she did in 2001. This year she will be working on her ddissertation which is on games, interactivity and gender.

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