This is a slight spinoff of my last thread. What age do people consider someone as an older gamer? I mean someone that is really into video ganes. My dad is 56 and plays a few computer and video games almost daily so I would consider him one. However he only got into video and computer games when I did. Share some wisdom with me please.

I guess it depends on who you talk to. Some people might say that there just for kids, but they dont get the whole gaming experince thing. You could never be to old to play games. I for one for will probably be playing games for as long as I live. :)

Well...I am 33 years old and have been playing games since Pong. Use to live in the arcades.....then bought an Atari 2600....Nintendo....Super Nintendo....Sega Genesis....Sega CD....Sega 32x......Playstation.....N64......Dreamcast......PS2....and will more than likely purchase the Gamecube and Xbox.

Bought my first computer back in 1994 and use to play many games on it.....now my gaming is spent mostly on the consoles. :)

Well, i'm 21 and i've also been playing since pong...radio shack pong that is...it is one of my earliest memories...i'm sure it wasn't brand new...but neither was my coleco or atari 2600...but my ps2 is....
:D

I pretty much echo djones' reply. I'm 31, and my first vg experience was the old Pong TV game (I think it was made by Sears). This one also had a light gun that let you shoot a square on the screen, IIRC.

How far we've come...

I'm 42, and my Dad is in his mid 70s... He caught the bug from me, and is now a much more avid PC gamer than I am... Subscribes to all the magazines, tries out all the demos, and buys new games faster than he can play 'em...

I'm 25 and my first "gaming" machine was an Atari 400. That's the one with the keyboard and the tape player. Stick in the cartridge and a tape and hit PLAY and stare at a blue screen for up to an hour listening to it go Beeeeeepp! Beeeeeppp! as it loads the game from the tape. Ah those were the days.

Also had a TI-88 which was pretty much the same as above, but with a voice synthesizer! Woohoo!

Moved up to an Atari 800XL, also had a Commodore 64, then I started getting into PCs. Then came the NES and the rest is pretty much history.

The games for the Atari 400 and 800XL for those who don't know, were much better graphics-wise than the 2600 and 5600. I kind of skipped over those consoles when I was young, but now I have several Atari 2600s with, I think the last count was, 500+ games.

I have a 5600 and a few games for it also, but apparently the joysticks for those systems weren't too durable and I can't find any that work. And I have never seen a 400 or 800XL anywhere, but have seen the games. TI-88 games pop up every now and again too, but no systems that I've found.

~Scheherazade

PLease. Being twenty is not old. At least I hope not. I'm 19 FYI.

39 and still gaming :) . I may by slower but i make up for it with cheats ;)

I would think older gamers are people 30 and above.

I'm 26 and the first console I had was the magnavox oddesey. I play all of the time. It wasn't until I got to college that I found out that there was nothing to be ashamed of in being over 14 and liking games.

You'll start feeling old around 24 ;)

~Scheherazade

27 here and my wife says I am nuts. :)

I had a few customers in the 70's and 80's who were die hard gamers. There was one guy who was a fighter pilot in WW2, ambled in with a cane and hunched shoulders once a month, Tuesday morning, and asked about new flight sims for systems. He was in his 80's.

There was another woman who was in her 70's who was so into RPG's. She would have her teenage grand-kids come in to pick the games up every once in awhile. She would occasionally call to find out when the next FF was coming out. She would call, and call, and call. For her, the ever-moving release dates were a much more serious issue then us snot-nosed kids who complained that games were delayed half a year. She was #1 on the list for some FF game (Tactics maybe?) and we called her the day it came in as always, but she wasn't of this world any longer.

More than half of our 'regular' customers were clearly over 35, so 20's doesn't cut it as old.

You want to see older gamers? Go on Everquest... you see tons of people there who are in their late 20's to 40's. It's not uncommon to see entire families playing the game. A group you see very often in EQ witch surprised me are stay at home parents with young children, almost daily someone in your party has to go feed their young child or change them.

I run an Everquest guild with about 130 members. At least 1/3 of them are 30+. I have a few moms in there, some husband/wife teams, and a father/son team or two :)

And one of the mom's in the guild is one of the best players I've ever seen :)

I actually took this as being 'older' gamers in the sense that you have been playing them for upwards of 20+ years. Though I can see how the thread would apply to some 40 year old person who just picked up Everquest last year and it was their first gaming experience. Personally I'm more impressed at folks who have been playing since video games were invented than some Johnny come lately who just started last year and happens to be over 40.

~Scheherazade