Are you a middle aged gamer and how long have you been gaming?

[Anomnomnomaly]

Curious to know how many of you lot are older than 40?

 

I am... in fact I'm closer to 50 than 40... but still playing games like I have done since my dad got us a Binatone pong machine when I was a little kid... Then I had an Atari 2600, a Commodore 64 (where I first played around with programming basic), Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, SNES, Megadrive, PSX, N64, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, Wii...and that's kinda where my console use stopped.

 

I've been building my own PC's for over 20yrs now, I've been online since around 95.

 

No longer bother with multiplayer games... don't really have many gamer friends and those that are play different types of games to me... Plus my reflexes aren't whatt hey were, so I just can't compete properly in fast paced games like FPS and I can't abide these battle royale type games. Too many smacktards.

 

So I stick to SP FPS, 3PS, RTS and so forth.. along with the odd sim game.

[lieder1987]

Not older than 40 (about to be 32) but in the same boat as most of your points. I also stick with SP FPS, 3PS, RTS, and the like. I prefer playing games by myself, and those around me are not playing video games like I do. Most of them are too busy with work, family, etc.

[Caennanu]

like lieder, not older than, halfway there tho . . . in my mid 30's.

i don't like and actually never liked the faster paced games like shooters, have played racers from time to time but in essence, single player games rarely grab my focus long enough to make them actually worth the investment of purchase.

 

I prefer having to think and / or puzzle, so currently i'm more into building and survival games. Currently playing satisfactory and factorio quite a bit, EU4 is also good to play (good single player too btw!, just a bit expensive to buy completely). waiting for the next mmo, currently got my eye on Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, just waiting for alpha.

[Turtle Rig]

34 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Curious to know how many of you lot are older than 40?

 

I am... in fact I'm closer to 50 than 40... but still playing games like I have done since my dad got us a Binatone pong machine when I was a little kid... Then I had an Atari 2600, a Commodore 64 (where I first played around with programming basic), Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, SNES, Megadrive, PSX, N64, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, Wii...and that's kinda where my console use stopped.

 

I've been building my own PC's for over 20yrs now, I've been online since around 95.

 

No longer bother with multiplayer games... don't really have many gamer friends and those that are play different types of games to me... Plus my reflexes aren't whatt hey were, so I just can't compete properly in fast paced games like FPS and I can't abide these battle royale type games. Too many smacktards.

 

So I stick to SP FPS, 3PS, RTS and so forth.. along with the odd sim game.

Im 41 and I feel 21.  Feels great..... Ive been through it all.  Commodore, Tandy,  DOS, Win 3.1 , and so on.

[Teddy07]

A bit over 30 but I recently lost my interest for gaming probably because I am burned out from the last 15+ years. I just don´t care anymore

[SolarNova]

You will probably find the biggest proportion of 'older gamers' being in their 30's, so dont be surprised to get responses from them.

 

I my self being one such person, (32), started out on the Atari 2600jr, Gameboy, MegaDrive/Genesis, PlayStation, Gameboy Color, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Wii. 

My 1st PC that i didn't share with the family was a 486/100 based machine somewhere around 1995, prior to that i would play on my old mans machine with games like Lemmings, but i cant recall what it was.

 

Prior to the mid 00's i would definitely call myself a 'gamer', I had over 200 games on the PS1 for example, but towards the late 00's games imo became less content oriented and more aesthetic based with fluff content added to extend play time , such as achievements, collectables and such. This change is still present today so i play far less games now simple due to the value proposition, not to mention the change in popular genre.I was very much a RPG, Adventure, and platformer gamer, with story driven FPS and RTS thrown in.

 

Even if a game comes out that is in a genre i like, most of the time the play time required to complete the core game is around 15 hours which is laughable, ill have that completed in a few days, so its rarely worth the price asked imo.

 

The last big games I played a lot was WoW, i was really into that for a while, Vanilla and TBC primarily, half of Wraith, and the 1st couple months of Cata. And Eve online, but that game eventually got to slow for me as it really did require one to invest in the economy of the game to have fun with the PVP aspect of things, something i wasn't prepared to bore myself to death with.

 

Nowadays i dont consider myself a gamer. I also dont consider most 'pros' gamers either as they focus on one game usually, so as far as im concerned they are a 'pro XYC player' not a 'Pro gamer'.

 

I play a handful of game a year now, some of which are kind of old. 'Diablo 3' for example i keep going back to now and then, im currently playing 'They are Billions' , and 'Grim Dawn'. My recent games seem to fit within the realm of 'most re-playable', those without a definitive end, simply because games with an end, end to quickly nowadays due to not having enough core content.

Despite short completion times there are some games i still want to get around to playing, Darksiders 3 and Devil May Cry 5 for example as i loved the previous installments (even DMC gameplay wise, not story wise). Im also looking forward to The Surge 2 as Deck13's previous souls like games 'Lords of the Fallen', and 'The Surge' were great imo.

[steelo]

39, never really been a hard-core gamer but always enjoyed games like Warcraft 3 and C&C. I picked up an oculus about 4 months ago. VR is very new to me and I love it, I play star trek bridge crew, brass tactics and superhot pretty much every evening

[Slayerking92]

Just turned 45 this year.  But I do find myself watching twitch more then playing a game myself these days.

 

I started with an Magnavox Odyssey² in the late 70's, then a vic20, colecovision, C64, NES, SNES, Genesis, ps1, dreamcast, ps2, ps3, ps4.  I always had a PC as well.

 

But my gaming these days is mostly just WoW and some D3 on the weekends.

[Majinhoju]

I'm 35, so not quite there yet but getting there.

Gaming has changed a lot for me but mostly due to lack of free time.  I only get an hour or so at the end of the day, maybe more if I'm willing to sacrifice sleep, haha.

If I do play online games, I stick with coop games in friendlier communities.  Been having a good time so far with FFXIV and Monster Hunter World.  I have no interest in toxic communities.  I tried Apex Legends once, didn't even find a weapon on my first round and had to listen to my teammates over the voicechat complain about me.  Yeah, screw that.

 

I've been a lifelong gamer though.  It started with the NES back when I was a child and I've been gaming ever since.  I still cram in what gaming I can if time allows.

[Touch My Hamm]

Turning 30 this year. My father's best friend purchased him a NES when I was born so he had something to do while he was home with me. I grew up playing NES, SNES, N64 (most years playing N64). After the PS2/Xbox, I got into computers due to a friend being into PC building and my father being a IT and a PC builder. I still play games daily which my wife hates but she has her own hobbies that take time so it works out. 

 

Mostly MMO's, FPS, VR games. 

[Anomnomnomaly]

19 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Even if a game comes out that is in a genre i like, most of the time the play time required to complete the core game is around 15 hours which is laughable, ill have that completed in a few days, so its rarely worth the price asked imo.

 

 

 

I have a rule... I will no longer pay full price for a game that has 50% or more of it's content removed so it can be sold back to you later at ever increasing prices.

 

The last game I paid full price for was Civ 5, and I bought the expansions (on sale I think). I won;t buy Civ 6 because it's...

1: Pretty bad

2: The base game costs £60 and the DLC costs a further £70.

 

So my rule now is wait until the steam sales come along and then pick up games proving these 2 criteria are met.

1: It must be the full game with all DLC (cosmetic stuff is irrelevant)

2: It must be 60% or more off.

 

So when Civ 6 is on sale inc everything for £30 or less... Only then will I pay for it. Same applies to everything else.

[circeseye]

i'll be 51 this year been gaming since the old organ trail on a apple comp....or was it pong.... but played on all the consoles, hell i still have a bunch. been on pc games since win 95

[Touch My Hamm]

6 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

 

I have a rule... I will no longer pay full price for a game that has 50% or more of it's content removed so it can be sold back to you later at ever increasing prices.

 

The last game I paid full price for was Civ 5, and I bought the expansions (on sale I think). I won;t buy Civ 6 because it's...

1: Pretty bad

2: The base game costs £60 and the DLC costs a further £70.

 

So my rule now is wait until the steam sales come along and then pick up games proving these 2 criteria are met.

1: It must be the full game with all DLC (cosmetic stuff is irrelevant)

2: It must be 60% or more off.

 

So when Civ 6 is on sale inc everything for £30 or less... Only then will I pay for it. Same applies to everything else.

A bit off topic and I want to totally derail this. But I hate how companies have started this. The sad part is it makes them more money to do this and people keep buying unfinished products where content is taken out so they can keep charging people. 

 

I blame everyone who are buying these things your only feeding the reason why its happening. 

[SolarNova]

3 hours ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

 

I have a rule... I will no longer pay full price for a game that has 50% or more of it's content removed so it can be sold back to you later at ever increasing prices.

 

The last game I paid full price for was Civ 5, and I bought the expansions (on sale I think). I won;t buy Civ 6 because it's...

1: Pretty bad

2: The base game costs £60 and the DLC costs a further £70.

 

So my rule now is wait until the steam sales come along and then pick up games proving these 2 criteria are met.

1: It must be the full game with all DLC (cosmetic stuff is irrelevant)

2: It must be 60% or more off.

 

So when Civ 6 is on sale inc everything for £30 or less... Only then will I pay for it. Same applies to everything else.

I also have rules when it comes to game purchases.

 

1) With only 1 exception, i will never purchase MTX's.

1-a) Exception: if the game is F2P and i REALLY enjoy it and play it for a long time, i will spend up to £30.  From memory i've only done this once. (MechWarrior Online - Ultraviolet DireWolf purchase + some premium currency)

2) Games with day one gameplay DLC, avoid. games with expensive gameplay DLC, avoid.

3) No EA games .. ever. F**k EA!

4) Endeavor to avoid games with extensive MTX monetisation.

5) Only purchase after 'testing' / 'Demoing' the game 1st.

6) Enjoyable but short play time, and 'simple' (I.E 'Basic' indie games) games, to be bought on sale for £15 or less. Not paying full triple A price for a basic game.

7) Vote with my wallet. Dont purchase, purchase on sale, or purchase at full price special editions to discourage bad practices, or support great games/developers.

 

As im sure you can gather i dont purchase many games nowadays

 

[Anomnomnomaly]

2 hours ago, hammjoel said:

A bit off topic and I want to totally derail this. But I hate how companies have started this. The sad part is it makes them more money to do this and people keep buying unfinished products where content is taken out so they can keep charging people. 

 

I blame everyone who are buying these things your only feeding the reason why its happening. 

Have you seen that little chart comparing a burger, fries and drink to how games used to be vs now?

 

It so fucking accurate that every time I see it... I still chuckle and then feel sad at how true it is.

 

2 hours ago, SolarNova said:

I also have rules when it comes to game purchases.

As im sure you can gather i dont purchase many games nowadays

 

 

Have you seen that little chart comparing a burger, fries and drink to how games used to be vs now?

 

It so fucking accurate that every time I see it... I still chuckle and then feel sad at how true it is.

 

 

I can spend about £20-30 during a sale and can pick up anywhere between 3-20 games... Bundles can often be good. I picked up the entire quake series for about £5 around the xmas sale, and all but the latest doom games for less than that.

 

I've currently got a few games sat in my basket... waiting to see if anything else on my wishlist goes on sale in the next few days.

 

My current steam account has around 200 games in it, Uplay has about 30, gog has another 15 or so. I refuse to have a windows account so they can track me through W10 (and I have software to block and disable most of the built in tracking), so no games through there... But I can't think of anything that I really want anyway.

 

I'll never have an EA account, nor will I get an Epic one... Fuck exclusives that only serve to fracture the market and reduce sales.

 

I see the games market becoming much like the video streaming one... where there are so many players now and more coming... that it dilutes the market so much that it becomes pointless having a streaming account with any of them.

 

I'm not objecting to exclusives from any company that produces their own stuff... But how about after 6-12 months of having that exclusive you offer it to all the other services (same with games). Take all those marvel TV series... that have all been cancelled and pulled from netflix... Because Disney is launching their own streaming platform and I will say with 100% certainty that those shows will be back exclusive to the Disney service (maybe not with the same cast or anything)

 

I'd actually like to play Red Dead Redemption 2, but I can't due to bullshit exclusives... It's not going to make me buy an entirely different platform just for one game though.. fuck no!

 

 

And to go off on a completely different tangent yet again... In the UK a few years ago they tried to break the monopoly that Sky sports had with the Premier league football... They forced it to be divided up between 3 companies... The reasoning was that it would make it cheaper for consumers... The exact opposite has happened.

 

Say you want to follow your fave team and watch every game that season... The only way to do that is to have the sports package from Sky, BT & Virgin media... They TRIPLED the cost when they were trying to reduce it.

 

I was a big fan of the Formula 1 races, used to watch all of them... Sky purchased the rights... made promises that I would never go behind a paywall and always be part of their TV/HD package... A couple of years later... it goes behind a paywall.  If you want to watch the F1 now, you have to pay for the TV pack, HD pack and now the sports pack... Which comes to around £55 and that doesn't include 4k broadcasting, or movie channels or other sports channels. If you want all of it... expect to be paying in excess of £130 a month. It's disgusting.

 

It's no wonder that so many people turn to... let's call them 'evaluation' versions of tv/movies/games to try them out and see if they would like to purchase them. I no longer have any sympathy for these greedy companies who cannot see the long term damage they are doing to the all of the industries for some short turn profit for their shareholders... yet they're the first ones to complain when people stop paying for their over priced, stripped down crap.

[NineEyeRon]

About 10 years ago I played il2 with people in their 50s, 60s and 70s.

 

They often had pretty killer PCs and the best flight sticks!

 

Myself I am only mid 30s, still play RL, CSGO (played so many hours of CSS even steam doesn’t know as it didn’t count hours when I first started).

 

I usually however play Cities skylines and other slow paced at times due to family commitments. FM series is in my rotation but I suck at it.

 

 

[Blasteque]

43.  I've been gaming since Atari 2600, then moved to Apple IIGS (with ubiquitous Oregon Trail), then 286, been PCs ever since.  Still game 1 - 4 hours per day.

6 hours ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

No longer bother with multiplayer games... don't really have many gamer friends and those that are play different types of games to me... Plus my reflexes aren't whatt hey were, so I just can't compete properly in fast paced games like FPS and I can't abide these battle royale type games. Too many smacktards.

I don't multiplayer anymore either unless it's with friends.  That stopped... a while ago, but not because of reflexes, those are fine, the issue was the online community.  I loaded up Crysis (I think that's what it was) into a team deathmatch 5 days after it came out and I was yelled at for not knowing how to play that map.  No thanks. 

 

Where did I put that copy of Unreal Tournament...

[Anomnomnomaly]

24 minutes ago, NineEyeRon said:

About 10 years ago I played il2 with people in their 50s, 60s and 70s.

 

They often had pretty killer PCs and the best flight sticks!

 

Myself I am only mid 30s, still play RL, CSGO (played so many hours of CSS even steam doesn’t know as it didn’t count hours when I first started).

 

I usually however play Cities skylines and other slow paced at times due to family commitments. FM series is in my rotation but I suck at it.

 

 

 

I've got Cities Skylines and Planet Coaster but they're kinda resource hogs... Planet Coaster especially. Add a few rides from the steam workshop that people have created and it slows to a crawl due to trying to render thousands of individual scenery items on each ride. Which kinda makes the game unplayable even on my new system.

 

I've not played Skylines in a while because it kept crashing. Had to remove all of the steam workshop mods as I couldn't pin down which one was to blame... and that kinda makes the game bland after having some of the sweet extras.

 

10 minutes ago, Blasteque said:

43.  I've been gaming since Atari 2600, then moved to Apple IIGS (with ubiquitous Oregon Trail), then 286, been PCs ever since.  Still game 1 - 4 hours per day.

I don't multiplayer anymore either unless it's with friends.  That stopped... a while ago, but not because of reflexes, those are fine, the issue was the online community.  I loaded up Crysis (I think that's what it was) into a team deathmatch 5 days after it came out and I was yelled at for not knowing how to play that map.  No thanks. 

 

Where did I put that copy of Unreal Tournament...

 

My first multiplayer experience was on an office LAN at my friends old place of work... Marathon II on their Mac's... Kill the man with the skull sub game and so forth... Great fun and I was pretty good.

 

Had a couple of systems, a 386 and a 486... then my first system with a modem was a Pentium 200mhz with a 2GB hard drive around 98... Didn't really start playing online multiplayer until Unreal Tournament came out in 99... and I loved that game... Instagib capture the flag and assault were my faves.  I never really scored very highly due to lag.. and always wondered if I was actually any good.

 

So when I got my first DSL line in early 2002... I started playing as part of a clan I helped setup from the old alt.games.wolfenstein newsgroup... Called ourselves [AGW] and had an irc chatroom and our own server for Return to Castle Wolfenstein and later, Battlefield 1942 with the desert combat mod (I was part of the DC team for a while too).

 

Turned out I was rather good after all when everyone was playing with an equal ping... Not brilliant, but tactically very good and my K:D ratio was always around the 3 or 4 to 1 range.

 

But as consoles started becoming more common and the audience for online PC gaming grew... it was ruined by smacktards... and as you pointed out... Playing with selfish people who expect everyone to know everything completely ruins the experience for everyone.

 

That kind of attitude is still very present in online gaming, no one is willing to help newbies out and explain stuff and many of these games offer no way to play off line against bots to learn the ropes before venturing online.

[Anomnomnomaly]

Always wanted to try rocket league, but seemed to be a little bit of a pay to win type of game.

[Video Beagle]

I'm a dino just like OP...closer to 50 than 40....

 

I played Pong on a stand up cabinet a friend had.

Did the arcades..loved Tron.

 

Computer gaming has really always been a huge gap in my otherwise well rounded geek profile. Just kind of passed me buy...First console I had was a NES (with POWERGLOVE) I kinda inheritted in college.  Always wanted an Atari 2600...then Colecovision....had been saving up for them, but just...eh.

 

These days, I do Elder Scrolls online with a group of RL friends...we've migrated around following City of Heroes closure.., and I'm going thru Bungie's Oni after getting it working on Win 10..I tend to be more into licesened games.. Star Wars, Batman, Spider-Man...then gaming for the sake of gaming.

 

Never really done the multiplayer-combat/competition games. I like some of the online RPG for the social aspect (I wrote one of the first academic papers on the subject)...I did the MUSHes and MUDs in college :)...

 

 

[Anomnomnomaly]

So I picked up Rocket League GotY in the steam sale yesterday...  Played some of it offline this morning first 1v1 against easy bot, then 1v1 against pro and finally 2v2 against pro bots.

 

So far I've found it kinda easy to win... Gonna raise the number of bots and get some more practice in... and then maybe try an online game in a larger team rather than 1v1 because I know I'll get creamed.

 

Also picked up Agents of Mayhem... which is basically Saints Row 6 with different characters and loactions... Which is ok as I enjoyed those games... and on sale it was nice and cheap.

 

I then grabbed WRC7 as I've already got WRC6 and I like Rally games.

 

When I was a kid, an arcade opened in my town... Never had the latest and greatest games, but still some good ones. But my all time faves were Bubble Bobble and 720º. In BB me and a friend used to play together and got close to a perfect game without continues... But 720º was where I shone... I never knew who the other player was but we had a running battle for top score, leap frogging each other time after time. When I moved away, I still had the top score.

 

In the latter half of the 90's I entered a Gran Turismo tournament in my home town on the Playstation and came second... The only defeat I suffered was from the winner.

 

But it's really hot here today, too hot to be outside in direct sunlight (I suffer easily with heat stroke in these temps), so I'm in my home office, windows open, fan blowing across my upper body and about to go kick some Bot Butt in RL again for practice.

[RyzenDoctor]

Hit 35 a couple of months back... My video gaming history dates back to an Atari 2600, followed by an MSX computer. In 1989 we bought our own PC; it was an Advanced Logic Research IBM compatible. 386 sx with 4 mb of ram, a 3.5 inch floppy, a 5 1/4 inch floppy, and 2 hard drives. Sadly had to rely on a PC speaker for a while. First PC game we ever finished was the original Prince of Persia. Sierra Online was the best game publisher out there with series like Police quest, quest for glory, kings quest, and space quest being memorable releases.

 

One day, my father comes home after traveling to the states with a Packard Bell Pentium 100 Mhz (oh yeah it was trash =P ) but it was my first full multimedia PC. A few years later, had a hand me down Compaq workstation...

 

I kept building / modifying PCs until 2010. I moved, and "grew up". Adulting became hard and time consuming. I also had to pay my own bills and rent which put a different spin on things. Fast forward to 2017... AMD releases Ryzen, I have some money to burn, wife's travelled overseas, and I discovered that the place called microcenter near me sells computer parts... God I put a smile on the salesperson's face... After around $1500 I walked out with a haul that did not include any monitors or peripherals as I had those for my mac mini which I used for some office work.

 

Built the thing during the day, installed windows 10, and then decided that my first install would be Grand Theft Auto 5. Things have spiraled since then =P 

[Anomnomnomaly]

Never let anyone tell you something is immature, if you have a passion for something... enjoy the fuck out of it for as long as you like.

 

The immature ones are those who try to deny you something that brings you joy.

[Video Beagle]

[mr moose]

43, been building computers and electronic gismos since I was strong enough to hold a soldering iron.  I remember memory/co processor upgrades actually requiring you take the IC out of PCB mount.    Been gaming for as long too. 

 

4 hours ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Never let anyone tell you something is immature,

 

Challenge accepted:

poo poo wee,     vagina.