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Who's the oldest gamer you know?

My old workmate was in his early 40's and on my last day there was telling me how he had just ordered Wolfenstein.

Also my mum can smash me at Wii Play and likes to play Mario (even though she has always sucked). When she was dog sitting for me when I was on holiday, she called my friend over to show her how to use the Wii U to play NSMBU. She is 55.
 
Interesting question but its one filled with ambiguity. Out of my circle of friends I have probably been playing games the longest (24-25 years) but a lad I know only started playing games in his late thirties (So older than me) but has only been playing games for roughly 5 or 6?
 
My Battlefield clan mate (actually he started the clan) is over 50. We often play together and we visit each other even though we're from different countries. He's a very cheerful person and a good friend. Meeting him and other people I play over PSN now was one of the best things that happened to me through games.
 
I was in a WoW guild once where the leader was 60+ and her two daughters were the officers, and they were both 35+. Best guild I've even been in. :)
 
The oldest I know is about 80 years old. Mostly plays slower games without much of reading now, that would be card games and puzzle games for the most part, although hates fast ones especially timed. Watching her to play I understood that there are nowhere near enough games for older people. I mean we aren't getting younger and most of us will want to play at that age, if we live long enough. Imagine having 10 games you can play total! Horrifying idea.
 
That would be my Mom and she's 65, she's completed all the GOWs, Devil May Crys Tomb Raider's and a few Resident Evils aswell a her own games.
Second would be my mates Dad who is a PC gamer
He plays all the total war games but he would like a console as his tired of upgrading just to play (he ain't bothered about how it looks just as long as it works which he sees that what consoles offer, they work )but they don't do his games
 
I'm 45 years old
While sure I'm not the oldest gamer around I might be one of the most ACTIVE old gamers around
I'm still involved in gaming photography with my website www.electricblueskies.com and last week some of my screenshots were printed on canvas and crystal to be exposed during GamesWeek in Milano where I personally attended
Back at home, I played 4-hours-non-stop of #Bayonetta2 and grabbed some new screenshots for my "faux official ShadowOfMordor Wallpapers" collection

And of course I share sometimes my thoughts on forums in a foreign language
 
Nice to see so many people posting here, my parents are mid 50s and i think if i left them in a room with even something easy like Assassins Creed, and only let them out once they beat it, they would die in that room
 
oni-link said:
Nice to see so many people posting here, my parents are mid 50s and i think if i left them in a room with even something easy like Assassins Creed, and only let them out once they beat it, they would die in that room
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I think you can kill a lot of people by making them to play AssCreed, and being easy has nothing to do with it
they'll die of boredom (><)

source
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/curious/201003/science-shows-you-can-die-boredom-literally
 
Arthea said:
I think you can kill a lot of people by making them to play AssCreed, and being easy has nothing to do with it
they'll die from boredom (><)

source
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/curious/201003/science-shows-you-can-die-boredom-literally
Click to expand...

Well my point was more a way to illustrate they are mid 50s and don't understand the often unexplained language and logic of games

So many times we take for granted that we know how a game controls, or where we need to go next, or we have an idea of what we need to do next, just because a lot of games follow the same logic, if you don't play games at all and then jump into a modern game that alone is enough to leave you confused
 
oni-link said:
Well my point was more a way to illustrate they are mid 50s and don't understand the often unexplained language and logic of games

So many times we take for granted that we know how a game controls, or where we need to go next, or we have an idea of what we need to do next, just because a lot of games follow the same logic, if you don't play games at all and then jump into a modern game that alone is enough to leave you confused
Click to expand...

that's true, of course. Kids get into games easier as they are willing to try anything and go with the flow. Grown up people need games and controls to make sense, and they often doesn't make sense in everyday life sense, that's just something we know and are used to.
But that doesn't matter that you can't "teach" your parents to play almost any game in reasonable time frame just showing them how it is done, if they want to, that is.
 
One of my uncles, he is married, has 2 sons (my 2 cousins that are older than me with 30 something) and is more than 60 years old.
He is a big fan of RPG's, sandbox games, shooters, action games, strategy games... you name it. Plays a bunch. He plays coop with one of my cousins of games like borderlands.
He is retired so he is normal week is he playing games, watching documentaries and movies and visiting museums.
When I was small I dont remember him playing any games (although he was the one that got me the Atari 2600 when I was 3). My two cousins were avid gamers (I remember when I went to their house and could play dreamcast with a bunch of games), so I suppose they were the ones who made him a gamer.
Also my uncle is amazing because he is really intelligent and cultured, and really opened to everything (thats probably one of the things that made him play games to try them), so it's awesome visiting museums or famous locations just to have him as a guide.
My father is younger than him and still thinks videogames are shit even I worked and win money with them. Of course he is a block head and not that open minded.

I also have another uncle, this one is my youngest one (in fact I have cousins older than this uncle), he is 40 and he was the one that made me a gamer.
When I went to my gandmothers house at young age I slept in his room and he had a nes (and after that a super nes, and also a game boy) so I played all the time with him. Those summer and christmas vacations where amazing.
 
I'm forty, I still have frieds that were into computer games since the 80's and 90's
some of them are in the upper side of 60's.
hell, I bought my mother a xbox 360 a couple of years ago, and she is like top25 in that online ranked poker game, she says there are 1.8 million players there..
last month, one day she calls me up and asks me to go help her set up the camera/kinect. I was like "wtf ma? you dont like cameras?" and she went like "oh, one of my friends that I play (poker) with, she is having her birthday, and we arranged for a small camera meet-up"
I was like ....astonished :D
I want to buy her an xbone, but she says "Nope" as there is yet no online poker game there lol


kids that are like 5-6-10 right now, and getting to know computer entertainment as it is now (caveats aside), they sure are ...lucky compared to what we grew up with.
although being there from the start, that certainly has its magic too.
 
And may I add that both of the ppl I know that are in their 50's beats my ass in Madden...

I used to beat my brother so bad I let him win from time to time. That was like 20 years ago tho. lol. I He plays online alot, I dont. They both do. I do think playing online helped me get better at NBA 2K tho. I need to invest more time online for Madden.

Sometimes the cheesers, spammers get more frustrating on Madden, its easier to deal with it with basketball IMO.
 
Two people came to mind for me:

First, a retired teacher that I hired to do part-time work. He is 50-something and plays Diablo 3 like crazy. Like, I think he's maxed out levels for every class or whatever. I suggested Torchlight a while back and he loved that, too.

Second, my 60-something-year-old step-dad. What must've been years ago now, I got him a 360, a steering wheel and Forza. He now loves those games and, from what I hear, plays them every night before bed.
 
p3tran said:
kids that are like 5-6-10 right now, and getting to know computer entertainment as it is now (caveats aside), they sure are ...lucky compared to what we grew up with.
although being there from the start, that has its magic too.
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This.
I feel good thinking I was there day one (kind of) of Phoenix, Galaga, Asteroids, Ghosts And Goblins, Shinobi, Kikikaikai, Psychic5, StreetFighter2, Mission Impossible, Bombuzal, Phantasy Star, Shining Force, 8 and 16bits

I've seen the medium grow and mature, I've seen gamers tranforming into butterflies or haters, if SEGA is still working it's because I gave them SO MUCH MONEY in time :)

Somehow I've seen the very best the medium had to give
I feel honored and happy being there all the time and it MIGHT be that games saved my life. Or the exact contrary.
 
My father who's 57, he's currently playing Sniper Elite 3 and tends to mostly play strategy RPGs with the odd exception (Sniper Elite series being one of those). I used to sit on his lap when I was a kid messing around on the computers which was basically anything that came out lol. I remember Rescue On Fractalus scaring the shit out of me as a kid too. I also remember an early Atari version of Boulder Dash which my dad had hacked/created a trainer for to give himself infinite lives or something like that.

When computers first appeared years ago he also did a university course in them just because he fancied giving it a go, this was in companion to his electronic engineering degree. This was despite being married young and having two kids (me and my sister). Fuck knows how he found the time. He's certainly smarter than a stupid fucker like me lol.

My mum didn't play many games but she loved horror games and watching me play them. She also used to adore the Professor Layton games as well, everytime a new one came out I'd get it for her and she'd be extremely happy :)
 
My grandma played Quake 3 into her 60s... 70s? Not sure

My mum still plays (QuakeLive now) at 50something

They both refuse to strafe, fkn noobs :)
 
My dad recently turned 60 and he's a pretty serious gamer. He is out of town a lot for work and has a beefy gaming laptop that he plays things like Skyrim on.
 
Probably me @ 25. My dad will sometimes play FPS games, but is hardly a gamer. Other than him, the rest of my family (extended included) either don't game, or look down on it.
 
I am in my mid 40s and still one of the younger ones in my circles. Buddy of mine is about to retire and has a bigger collection than I do. His plan is to wake and work normal business hours... but only on his video game backlog.

I hope to do the same, except maybe a little more travel and trade shows.
 
Me.

I'm classically trained in videogames. Pong, Space Invaders, Atari VCS, C64, NES, SNES, PC, etc. Get off the lawn.
 
One of my managers at work is a massive PC gamer and he's in his early-to-mid 60s. He plays a ton of the Final Fantasy MMO (I forget what it's called at the moment) and just beat the new Wolfenstein.
 
Few of the lads on GP (a New Zealand gaming community) are in their 50s... in terms of people I see all the time however, I'm probably the oldest :P (34 years young).

Plan on gaming till death or the apocalypse comes, whichever comes first!
 
My Dad, in his 60's, still has our old Genesis hooked up to their bedroom TV and plays this Mahjong Tiles game religiously. He has that shit down to a science and prides himself on how few moves he can beat it in. Its funny cuz he makes fun of me for gaming but yet he plays a damn Sega everyday.
 
This thread gives me the warm and fuzzies. My Grandpa kinda quit in the 2000's :(. He is the reason I breathe videogames. He is in his 80's

I watched him for hours (and then played myself) play mostly Wolfenstein, Flight sims, and all the old Duke Nukem's

*Splinter said:
My grandma played Quake 3 into her 60s... 70s? Not sure

My mum still plays (QuakeLive now) at 50something

They both refuse to strafe, fkn noobs :)
Click to expand...

This is hilarious, and awesome
 
My best friend's uncle is a pretty big gamer and we usually talk at length about current games on PC and PS3/4 whenever I see him. No he doesn't work at Nintendo and no my friend hasn't tried to feed me to his gaming addiction.
 
There's this old man (in his 70's I reckon) who came into my shop all the time when I worked there 8 years ago and always bought RPG's, that he and his wife played together on their couch. It was really adorable. I saw him the other day in a gamestore that a friend of mine works at, and he was still playing RPG's. Currently he's trying to finish Tales of Symphonia. He's a great guy! :)
 
My dad play GTA4 and Forza on his xbox from time to time. He's 51.

EhrgeizVII said:
There's this old man (in his 70's I reckon) who came into my shop all the time when I worked there 8 years ago and always bought RPG's, that he and his wife played together on their couch. It was really adorable. I saw him the other day in a gamestore that a friend of mine works at, and he was still playing RPG's. Currently he's trying to finish Tales of Symphonia. He's a great guy! :)
Click to expand...

Wow, that's great! :) Hope I will do the same when I get old.
 
My Dad didn't start regularly playing games until the PS2-era. He loves 3D fighting games like Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soul Calibur, and enjoys RPGs like Final Fantasy and Mass Effect just as much.

It took him a couple years to overcome his struggle against his arch-nemesis, the right-stick camera controls-- the bane of all new players-- but now he can play just about anything no problem.
 
justjustin said:
It took him a couple years to overcome his struggle against his arch-nemesis, the right-stick camera controls-- the bane of all new players-- but now he can play just about anything no problem.
Click to expand...

Yeah this is one of the reasons I am liking the direction of the steam controller (if its still in production)
 
ITT people realise that gaming isn't the thing that kids do that grown ups don't understand because grown ups have been playing them for 40 years already.

There's a possibility that people in their 60s-70s playing games now have been doing so since they were younger than you are now, GAF.
 
Me, 40. Getting older is great...better than the alternative. Can be challenging to find time these days with all of my interests and responsibilities but I still make time.
 
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