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[s_mirage]

I'm reasonably certain that my skills have improved since I was a kid, but my patience has declined. What this means is that I can't complete some games that were hard in a bad way anymore, simply because I get frustrated and give up faster. As a child I got new console games rather infrequently, so I had to get the most out of them even if they were manifestly unfair.

 

[Emerson]

I don't know the truth of it as I don't believe there's been many (if any) actual scientific studies of it. But there's a lot of people in here who don't understand the difference between fine motor and gross motor skills, and it does make sense that the former would deteriorate sooner than the latter and even a small decline in that could have a large impact on a professional gamer whereas the (largely) gross motor skills of a physical athlete would not be as affected at the same age.

 

[Onemic]

Most definitely not at 25. Come on now, esports isnt more athletically taxing than actual sports lmao.

I'd really say it can only heavily affect you in twitch and lttk shooters like CS:GO. For everything else though, it's pretty much just a practice thing. Even then your reflexes wont deteriorate enough to really mess with you till you're out of your 30's.....And even then things like actual strategy and teamwork make up a much larger share of the pie in terms of actual success in those types of games vs pure reflexes.

 

[Snapshot King]

There was research that came out a while ago that determined that on average, your thinking speed and reaction times and such start to degrade as soon as you're 24. There are outliers, and the degree is obviously minor, but it gels with my own experience. I can go back to Devil May Cry 3 and 4 or older fighters and just feel myself being slower and less able to react. I'm only 29. It sucks.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

*remembers beating Ys games at 37*

You say this as if it's a question.

First Post!

This is art.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Isn't most of the big money in e-gaming these days in MOBAs? That's not a genre where lightning fast reflexes are all that important compared to everything else that goes into playing well.

 

[manueldelalas]

30 here and definitely getting better. In the past I would never touch games like La Mulana, Castle in the Darkness of Volgarr, now this are by far my favorite games, so much fun.

 

[todahawk]

I get 347ms. 29 btw. Not bad for someone whos had a lot of concussions! Better than my 450 or so I had around this time last year!! Improvement bitches!!

Just got 387ms, not as bad as I feared lol

At extremely high, competitive levels then the slight loss of motility and co-ordination that can come with aging could be a big factor in winning or losing.

For the rest of us who play recreationally, then it shouldn't be any issue at all. I'm 34 and feel just as capable as I did when I was 10.

Edit: average 257ms reaction time. Is that good/bad/OK?

I'm 43 and averaging 245-250ms.

@ReallityCheque: Check the statistics graph on the right of the page or click the link below for ore info, 257 is median, 267 is average.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

25

My reaction time and aim skill has dipped a little but my strategies and tactics are better than ever.

 

[GuardianE]

Your reactions may not straight decline as you get older, but your maximum potential declines. So you could very well be quicker in games now than you were when you were a teen, but could just mean you were untrained as a kid and lacked the muscle memory to act upon recognition of a situation.

 

[hesido]

First Post!

I hadn't seen this... Awesome post, laughing so hard right now..

 

[RealityCheque]

I'm 43 and averaging 245-250ms.

@ReallityCheque: Check the statistics graph on the right of the page or click the link below for ore info, 257 is median, 267 is average.

Happy enough with that. Although its not helping me beat The Fear in MGS3 at the moment. Spent an hour trying to kill him last night and still couldn't do it. Fuck that guy.

 

[bullet_happy]

35 here and still rocking!

Almost always second or first on Splatoon matches. Doing good at Souls/Bloodborne games. Still scoring the same results at 2D shooting games as 15 years ago. Good at Destiny PVP considering the time I am giving to it.

Oh, and I am playing 0 jRPGs these days so all my gaming time goes to reflex/skill-based games so that might help a bit.

Now with all this talk about reflexes and skills in videogames, maybe I will buy again a XBOX original console and Ninja Gaiden and replay it!

 

[StygianElysia]

I don't always trust Wikipedia, but the Proprioception entry there is fairly solid from a physiological perspective. The last citation is maybe what you are looking for?

Sight and hearing are the two most obvious examples of sensory systems that deteriorate with age. However, this deterioration holds true for ALL sensory systems, as far as scientists know. Reflexes would fall under the proprioceptive and kinesthetic senses that deal with body positioning and movement, respectively. That study I cited concludes that proprioception declines as you grow older.

*Disclaimer: The study has a definition of proprioception that I would deem very outdated, since it's derived from a textbook published in 1900. Rather, I would say that kinesthesia (body movement) incorporates proprioception (body positioning), not necessarily the other way around. Still, I don't think that interferes with the experimental design.

 

[Finaika]

Your reactions may not straight decline as you get older, but your maximum potential declines. So you could very well be quicker in games now than you were when you were a teen, but could just mean you were untrained as a kid and lacked the muscle memory to act upon recognition of a situation.

Thisss.

 

[TyrantGuardian]

Eh, to the extent this might be physiologically true, it is almost completely irrelevant in the context of Dota. Strategic awareness and anticipation are much, much more important. What exactly do you need reflexes to do in that game?

 

[jfoul]

I'm not sure if it's still the case but that http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime test used to be very inaccurate if you were using Chrome. Try it in a different browser.

I'll be 36 this month.

My overall 5/5 average is around 250ms, and my best 5/5 average is 232ms.

 

[Despera]

Naturally, yes.

However, I love playing games that require quick reflexes and training muscle memory, stuff like DJ Max Portable titles and Super Hexagon. This definitely helped me maintain a relatively good skill level.

I'm not big on online shooters but I sometimes play the occasional big release for a couple of months with friends, and my k/d ratio is usually in the 1.5-2 range. Guess that's good enough for 27 y o me.

A significant decline in reflexes in a short amount of time on the other hand probably has more to do with overall playtime than anything else. Whether the result of life getting in the way or a growing lack of interest, investing less and less time and energy on games most probably is the the main culprit.

 

[otaku-asia]

Don't need a study for this. Been playing IA/VT: Colorful the last 2 weeks and would definitely say yes. ,-(

 

[Camp Freddie]

As some people have said, it's not just "see a light/push a button" reaction times that matter, since that's not what you do in games.

You have to:
1) see a thing
2) contextualise it
3) think of an appropriate response
4) convert that mental response into an fast/accurate muscle movement

All of those things will decline to some extent with age.

However, for most people under 50, I think the main problem is that having free time (to dedicate to mastering a game) is something that decreases with age.
I remember playing BF2 10 years ago and practising various mouse grips, keybind combos, dolphin dives, crouch-roll shots, recoil compensation and so on.
There's no way I have the time or inclination to do that in BF4.

 

[sixteen-bit]

First Post!

lmao sick reaction times

 

[kpeezy]

As some people have said, it's not just "see a light/push a button" reaction times that matter, since that's not what you do in games.

You have to:
1) see a thing
2) contextualise it
3) think of an appropriate response
4) convert that mental response into an fast/accurate muscle movement

All of those things will decline to some extent with age.

However, for most people under 50, I think the main problem is that having free time (to dedicate to mastering a game) is something that decreases with age.
I remember playing BF2 10 years ago and practising various mouse grips, keybind combos, dolphin dives, crouch-roll shots, recoil compensation and so on.
There's no way I have the time or inclination to do that in BF4.

I agree with your post but what you're discussing isn't a measurement of reflexes. I believe familiarity with the action you're performing as well as prediction and situational understanding are far more important than your raw reaction time. But they aren't a measurement of your reflexes

Prediction and situational familiarity are a prerequisite to being able to utilize quick reactions. It can also compensate for slightly lower reaction times since raw reaction times vary a lot even at the highest levels of gameplay. I'm speaking mostly from a long competitive CS history.

 

[Osu 16 Bit]

The peak of my fighting game career was last year and I was 33.

My reaction time has never been a strong point so it slowing down wasn't a big problem. Game knowledge and experience probably helped more than the slower reflexes hurt.

 

[petran79]

I dont know because when I was a teen I never used them in video games....

 

[Woo-Fu]

Mid-40s, reflexes way down. Just compensate with knowledge, experience, and cunning.

Skill isn't just reflexes, though, so certain skills can be maintained, even increased even with lowered reflexes.

World of Tanks is great for those of us who left our twitch reflexes in our 20's. All it requires is intelligence, knowledge, and patience to succeed.

 

[DirtyLarry]

I am 40 years old myself.
I have been playing games since I am approximately 5 years old starting with Pitfall on the Atari 2600.
I do not need a scientific study to tell me that my reflexes are not what they used to be.
I know they are not.
However I do not believe that is the only thing to consider.

I happen to believe there is an even more important factor at play.
My willingness.
I had a much stronger desire, and willingness, to make sure my reflexes were as good as they could be 10-15 years ago.
Now? Not so much.
I really am just looking to relax and enjoy playing games.
Being good at them is pretty much the last thing on my mind.
I have nothing to prove to anyone else.
I would even say I never did. I just thought I did.

So while I do believe there is scientific evidence out there that would easily back to the claim that my reflexes have in fact deteriorated with age, I think the more important factor in the discussion is my attitude has changed quite a bit.

I play games to have fun. I do not play them to be considered good. There was a point in time I thought they two went hand in hand. Now I know better.

And this is why I personally tend to avoid playing any online MP based games like the plague these days. I no longer have the need or desire to prove myself to strangers, and it is not really fun playing people who feel like they need to do just that. Their sole purpose is to be better than me, hence they usually are. So playing people who are clearly better than me is not what I really consider to be a fun time.
So I stick to almost all SP lone wolf experiences, and I have fun on my own terms.

 

[Videoneon]

Many of the top Guilty Gear players in Japan are actually in the mid 20s to mid 30s range IIRC (they've also been playing for a while, too.) Obviously stuff gets worse but you're not getting hit with a bolt of lightning and becoming incapacitated