An Interview With 2old2play's Doodi

vinnie2k writes "This is an interesting interview with the founder of 2old2play.com. In it he discusses the future of gaming for older people, why we need communities like 2old2play, and how the gaming industry needs to refocus its efforts on the games it makes. Cool insight and worth the read for any older gamers."

Re:Old gamers? I must be ancient.

[incubusnb]

I'm 25 and as far as my Dad is concerned, 16 is too old to play Games. He still doesn't accept my hobby and asks me on several occasions when I plan to get rid of my consoles. I just tell him i'm getting a few more soon, to which he grunts and tells me to grow up.

People just don't understand.

This is so timely (for me anyway)

[conteXXt]

Today I was playing some Enemy Territory (Sniper mod) for a few hours.

Server was a Clan branded one, and a few of the members joined in the frag fest (well as much of a fest as sniper mod can be, but I digress).

To my surprise, they asked me to try out for their clan.

My response? How late do you play as I am old (well not really but I have responsibilities)

Average age of the clan? 32.

That was a surprise to me.

I guess certain games attract different age groups (duh) but I would have thought that a *clan* would generally be younger folks.

Anyone else have this experience?

Re:Old gamers? I must be ancient.

[magicRob]

Well anyone born before 1980 is too old to game ;) I'm part of a group (no we're not a clan, clans are for young people) called Below Eighty (eg born before 1980). Most of the people are married, have kids and game for fun rather than anything competitive... And if we do have gaming get togethers, it involves more drinking than gaming :)

25? Old? I'd say ideal

[ddx Christ]

I found it sort of strange that they referred to 25 as being old, senior citizen old. When I played Star Wars Galaxies (before it tanked), the average age for guild members was in the ~23-26 range. Most had jobs, a couple had children, a lot had wives/girlfriends.

I think I was the only one under 18 at the time (2 years back, I turn 18 this month). Most players that were in my age group were incredibly annoying; there's no doubt in my mind that the guild just wanted a more mature gaming group.

Granted, I no longer play MMORPGs as they take too much time. They suck the life blood out of me. I prefer just kicking back on less time consuming games, and my ideal teammate/opponent is usually a bit older than I am just for the sake of a greater chance of it being more fun (or tolerable).

Re:not too old

[symbolic]

I am upwards of 30 and I still enjoy firing up Vice City to raise HELL once in a while. I've also started Prince of Persia- granted my pace is somewhat slow, but I have other things going on so my time is limited. I've played WoW. Lineage2, America's Army, Planetside, and others. Games are something I enjoy, so I don't see putting the kibosh on playing them just because of some arbitrary age thing. I remember one guy playing AA was in his 70s.

I don't play games

[JCOTTON]

...haven't played any computer game since Trek on a PDP-11. SUCH A WASTE of time. If my kids spent half the time that they play games on learning a computer language, then they would be pulling down six figure salaries. Afterall, sitting in front of a tube is sitting in front of a tube. I do that 8 hours a day. But I get big bucks for it.
Can I rant on crossword puzzles too? Basically, supporting old apps is the same as a giant crossword puzzle. Think about it. When was the last time you got paid to do a crossword?

Do people read the articles?

[jayintune]

25 seems to be the base for the site. I took some time to check out the users and most of them are in their 30's and 40's. Seems like a place to get away from the cheating, screaming, kids of the gaming world. Im on similar sites for ps2 and I think there should be more of them. Having a site for all consoles and PC seems like a good idea.

Bring back adventure games!

[nighty5]

I'm 30 years old, but I remember playing the my first Sierra [wikipedia.org] game, Kings Quest [wikipedia.org].

From a very early age I was programming, TRS80's etc. Lucky my old man was a programmer, we had all types of all gear lying about.

My Favourites were:
Space Quest [wikipedia.org]
Police Quest [wikipedia.org]
Hero's Quest [wikipedia.org]
Leisure Suit Larry [wikipedia.org]
And last but not least: Zork [wikipedia.org]

I am disappointed to see they no longer make such games, now moving to more action type games. Adventure games were cool.

2old my arse

[ross.w]

I'm over 40, and I regularly play Lego Starwars with my 7yo son (highly rcommended game btw). And I play Doom 3 after he's gone to bed.

Since when was there an age limit?

never to old to game.

[Brtchlin]

my husband and i are clan gamers. mostly battlefield 2 for us and the rest of our clan plays everything from WoW, GuildWars, i've even seen them playing StarCraft. our clan caters to the older crowd. my husband is 47, and he's not the oldest member of the clan. http://www.elderwolves.com/ [elderwolves.com] sure we do have younger people playing with us, but thier mostly very respectful. to be honest, i really do not think gaming is strictly for the youngin's, nor is gaming strictly gender bound. for the longest time i thought i was the only woman playing FPS games untill very recently. stop by the site, were always looking for new recruits. i know i'm going to get yelled at for getting the site /.ed but thats ok, they will forgive me eventually.

He must have missed that the average gamer....

[Vermifax]

He must have missed that the average gamer is his age or older. Us mid 20s - mid 30s ARE the target market. Video games since we grew up with them and have disposable cash.