Did you stop playing video games as you grow up?

[Kelly6]

Does video games interest have anything to do with age?

[wynning]

I started pretty late so it’s still early days for me which means it’s big lol

[Kelley1]

Maybe not completely, but I seldom have much interest in playing video games.

[Kelly6]

@Kelley1
Is there any type of game you still enjoy?

[Kelley1]

Thank you for the MHO.

[Genie23]

I haven't played games on video game consoles in over 10 years. My brothers and I used to play daily on summer vacations whenever we were at home but as we grew older. We didn't have as much time anymore so when we got new console we would still play excitedly but very less often. Now we live apart from each other. Now I just play games every once in a while on my phone.

[WhiteSteve]

Kind of. I wasn’t super into them as a kid. Just average. I owned an Atari 2600 and eventually a Nintendo, and I had lots of fun with them. Nintendo in particular, being able to play sports when I couldn’t physically be playing sports was a godsend, haha. I just want to be “doing sports” at all times, real or computerized.

I fell off of them a little in high school. I had Sega Genesis, and there were a couple games I liked, namely NHLPA ‘93 (infinite fights, and you could injure guys in them and they’d be out for the period or the game, and a little pool of blood formed around them when they fell. I LOVED that😝) and NHL ‘97 (one fight per game limit😤😒, but the gameplay was good, and you could injure guys for multiple games with checks. I kept a written log for one season of man-games missed due to injury of my opponents, lmao). But I was busy chasing skirts and trying to thug out, lmfao, so it was part time.

In my 20s, I was a weed dealer, haha, and my day consisted of waking up, going to the gym, then coming home and sitting around until my bouncer job at night, waiting for customers to call and come over. So I filled a lot of that time with PlayStation 2. GTA San Andreas and Madden ‘04/‘05 mostly.

Since those days, I had an XBox 360 and didn’t upgrade til this past Christmas season. Like 17, 18 years of Xbox 360. Probably would play GTA V like six times a year.

I bought a PlayStation 5 on Black Friday, because then I could stomach the price-to-usage ratio over the long haul. Honestly…. still haven’t gotten fully into it. It’s fun, but taking time to sit down and do it is the issue. I bought/requested-as-a-christmas-gift like a dozen games (super cheap on Black Friday), and half are still in the plastic, haha. Ironically I’ve spent the most time playing an old game, GTA San Andreas, remastered for the PS5. I think I’m just not a video games guy.

My thing is this, though: I can get lost in something tedious and in-depth, that’s what I love. San Andreas in my 20s was that for me. Or Madden, and creating 32 fictional created teams to replace all the NFL teams, and playing a franchise over 30 years in a fictitious league. Drafts are my favorite part. I have all kinds of old notebooks of scouting info and positional needs, player rankings, etc. Armchair General Manager, haha.

That’s the key: give me something with a lot of tasks that I’ll lose myself in. I often enjoy that more than the gameplay. I played Madden for the first time on PS5 a couple months ago JUST to run drafts, and simulate the actual seasons, because the real NFL Draft was coming up. That’s my favorite thing to do. I also can get into things like SimCity/Cities: Skylines, or back when the original The Sims came out, my roommate had it, and I played it all day, everyday one winter break while he was gone. I was having Sims dreams, green pluses and red minuses over people’s heads as I spoke to them🤣

But something task oriented where you’re constantly leveling up, that’s something I can chase, and lose track of time and space while doing it. “Just one more level.” Famous last words, haha. And still, I always find some weird side quest that I focus on instead of the game. The Sims is really a house-building game for me. I play through the living of the Sim’s life, but I’m really just trying to design and furnish sick houses. SimCity is all aesthetic for me, I play sandbox mode or with cheats, I’m trying to generate tax revenue, I just want a final product I can design.

So…. I have a weird on/off thing with video games, and I think “off” is probably more my natural predilection. But I love tedious things, and I love sports simulations, so certain things can be up my alley. But I don’t really do all these games I hear about but don’t know what they are, “Assassin’s Creed” and shit like that. I suck at shooting people in a panic so Call Of Duty isn’t for me, haha. I want to be good at that and like it, but I just don’t have the thumbs for it. And I can’t be getting shit-talked by 13 year olds like I was 15 years ago on the first try🤣🤣🤣

But yeah, overall…. tough for me to commit to these days, even if the will is somewhat there.

[contentious]

Nope. I'd say the difference that has occurred over time is that video games use to be restively pricey as a kid so I didn't own a ton of games and I more often rented them from blockbuster for a week, beat them and returned them. Now I have more money and games are cheap as dirt and I own so many games that I don't have time to play them all. For example a single game use to be like $50 and to rent a game for a week it was like $5. Now I often get several games for $5 and often get free game keys here and there and I often beat a game over a month or so. As a result what tends to happen is I will buy a discount bundle of several games that are maybe a year old for several bucks and play one or two of them and a couple months down the road there will be another game bundle for like $5 and I will buy several more games and play 1 or 2 of them... Each time I do that I end up with several games I have never played buried in my game library that I forgot I even own. At this point I probably have 10 years of games to play just because they are stupidly cheap due to over saturation of the market. Video games are probably the most affordable form of basic entertainment for down time at this point.

[Purpleronnie]

Your questions seems to suggest that “ growing up “ should” mean that… hopefully that’s unintentional.

The use of video games as entertainment , pastime , or hobby etc has little to do with age. I’ve been enjoying them since I was about 12 years old , in my opinion anyine who thinks it’s immature or something that should be “grown out of “ needs to wake up and take their head out of their ass !


Video games , even just the development of , distribution and use of alone , likely combine to a value of at least a billion dollars every year supporting users and industry exceeding 10s of millions , likely substantially more. This is without even considering the video gaming is now recognised as competitive sport or the fact that the application of learned skills connect to many other industries ( dexterity , strategic thinking , cognitive skills , co-ordination etc etc


Im generally disgusted at people who ignorantly and disrespectfully sneer at adult gamers as “grown kids” , further hatefully and undeservedly classifying them as “loosers” and “societal rejects”. This speaks volumes about the pitiful level of ignorance out there on this topic alone. Sure everyone is entitled to an opinion but we all need to be mindful not to judge.

[FunkyMonkee]

I never really started. I got into Pac-Man for a short while in the early `80's. Other than things like Free Cell or Mahjong, I never bother with video games. There's one I have in the deep recesses of my computer that I whip out and play every few years, I think it's called, Tryclops.
You have a pyramid, the game starts with tiny pyramids slowing dropping into the frame of the big pyramid. Your job is to keep them from completely filling the big pyramid. Each of the tiny ones is a different colour. If you get 3 of them touching each other and click on any of them, all of those of that colour vanish. You CAN rotate the pyramid to help some join up so you can click them, or give you more time before the pyramid fills up. The more of them you get rid of, the more points you get. In some levels, you get exploding pyramids and you only get a few seconds to click on those before they become normal, in others you have 3-coloured pyramids so if any of the colours are touching it, and you click them, they all go away.

[WindAtMyBack]

I didn't START playing them until I was an adult because they didn't exist when I was a kid. Those games were not made for kids. In the early days it was almost entirely adults who played them. That's who they were made for.

It wasn't until many years later that some parents were stupid enough to stick their kids in front of those games. They didn't realize the danger until it was too late and their kids were flunking out of school.

Parents should NEVER let their kids play those games.

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Nope. But my relation to video games changed a lot over time, in the first years I had fun with all genres possible: Platformer, beat'em up, action-adventure, racing, rpgs, point & click, puzzle, strategy, shoot'em up, simulators. Damn, even football 👀

(retro) quiz? 👇🏼

Guess game

Then I became more and more picky, found less and less appeal in blockbusters. Looked for new ideas, concepts, which I found, thanks to indie scenes. But then I play much less because the next gem is always rare.

[HawkPerception]

Yeah honestly. They got repetitive and boring. When you did them as much as I did, it started to stop filling the void. If I spent the thousands of hours I used playing games in the past to be productive, I could've already been living my dream life. Now I have to play catch-up with everyone else because I decided to play early and suffer later rather than sacrifice early reap the rewards later.

I still do some games occasionally when I'm just trying to pass the time, but it's significantly less than before in life. I wouldn't mind picking up Skyrim and Fallout 4 again.

[Caroline91]

No because I never played video games to begin with. I spent my time at the beach and tide pools, climbing trees, searching for geodes in the desert, with my friends digging holes in the backyard to get to China, on a sailboat with the wind in my face, in a tent in the redwood forest, at museums and the zoo... pretty much anywhere but in front of a screen playing games.

[Orion84]

I have other responsibilities, as an adult, that take preference, but I do still plsy video games when leisure time allows.

It's a hobby, and one that isn't necessarily impacted by age, aside from the amount of time you can spend on it.

[Nikki1989]

Even as a young child, I thought they were childless, mindless entertainment that kids with low IQs wasted their time on. I have an even lower opinion of adults that play the nonsense.

However, look at popular music, movies, and TV that people rave about. The bar is set really low these days, ground level even.

[dustybiker2]

No. But they are probably good for brain exercise. We'll see as the first generation gamers age.

People tend to be either good at them or better at real life activities. My rl coordination supersedes the vertical, thankfully. I read to balance.

[dustybiker2]

Virtual*

[ohsheeT]

I think anyone can play as long as they want to any age. I have a couple of x boxes I have like 3 different play stations and about 25 games. I would play once I. A while. But I got then for Nephews and nieces when they were younger and to me they were boring so then picked up bikes so we could go on rides. I didn't like them being in the house all day long I had a friend that worked at a pawn shop and when thing would come up for sale I would ho pick things up for cheap cheap prices

[NordicInScandinavia]

I first started taking interest in videogames in my start 20s, how much I play has gone down again, but I still consider myself a gamer. That I've gamed with people upto 60+ then do I don't think it has much to do with age.

Hobbies being related to age has always amused me. That means my age ranges from a kid to a grandma on a daily basis almost

[AviatorTom]

I still occasionally play video games. Getting older hasn't stopped me. I prefer logic games on my tablet, though, over video games. The modern video games just don't have the attraction the old games I grew up with had: Asteroids, Galaxian, Centipede, Missile Command, etc.

[capriVib]

Yes, as people age, many find it harder to enjoy games as much as they used to, except for enthusiasts. However, some game companies create titles that spark excitement and a desire to experience new games regardless of age, especially Rockstar's games.

[NathanDavis]

I did stop playing video games as I grew up... but I didn't stop because I was growing up

I just ended up having less and less time to be able to play in the way I liked to play videogames back in the day... lol

and technically, I didn't stop... I just paused, lmao

[fish5505_87]

Yes, I grew tired of trying to keep up as time went by and my spare time lessened. Although the idea of playing never died. I bought an Xbox One S in 2016, to replace my PS3, which I barely played. My wife groans when I brought it home. Three years later when she was dusting our entertainment center, she pulled it out three games I purchased when I bought the system, they were still in the wrapping! She looked at me and smiled, then said "that was a good investment"

[EmmaMary]

@Kelly6

Believe it or not I've never, ever played video games.

[Kelly6]

@EmmaMary totally believe it

[Valdemort]

Somewhat. I used to get dizzy playing videogames when I was younger, so I stopped playing them.
I did have a job as a VR-programmer and had to play/watch like 60 interactive movies & games fora festival a few years ago. I haven't really played much since.

[Chazmatazz269]

No. I’m old enough to remember the original video games. They started as simple enough entertainment. As they developed, they became so much more sophisticated and complex. Modern games play through like an interactive movie or series. The graphics are so good and the stories so well executed. If anything, i’m more into video games and there’s no reason to stop.

[sawno]

No, but they do appeal to me less. Lot of "Been there done that". But the games I do enjoy are fun to bootup, but I mostly enjoy tinkering with IT so its more about providing servers, modding them, using them in VR for exercise that kinda thing.

[DangerouslyCute]

no... I still play them...

not so often anymore but I really like to unwind playing WoW or OW with my friends

[Sunrising]

I would love to play video games, just like I did when I was much younger, but I've other interests, and video games come a long way down my list of things to do. Perhaps you are right we stop playing video games as we get older.

[SteveSmith1985]

Yes, I did stop playing video games as I grew up. I stopped probably when I was around 13 maybe? Not that I made a conscious decision to stop. They just sorta faded out of my life as something I did.

[FreyaRed]

Yes. I try to play sometimes but I get really soon bored with a game.

[Kelly6]

@freyared
I used to be like that

[Gwendoline]

I never really played that often, especially on WII. My partner plays sometimes but he says he's pissed off with thd PS5 and the constant updates and having to buy expansion packs

[MemeSupreme]

not completely but i just don't have enough time to play anymore

and at some point you kinda feel like you're wasting time when you do play them lol

[Tarifa]

I was never very fond of video games, hardly ever played at all. I preferred toys like Lego, Hot Wheels cars, Marklin trains. Or just go out with friends on the bicycle.

[OlderAndWiser]

When i was a kid, you could go to a convenience store and play a a pinball machine. The first video games, like space invaders, were released when i was in college.

[Kaneki05]

I'm still young but I can safely say that would never happen. Nor would it to those that are gamers at heart. It's a way of life not a pass time.

[BCRanger10]

Not intentionally. It's been more that I haven't had time, but as time has gone on, I just haven't been as interested. I only have a Nintendo 64 with only five or six games though.

[Beckybooboo]

I only played for a brief period of time growing up. It was fun but I was doing too many other activities.

[Bricealan]

@Kelly6 Still enjoy some video games, especially if I get to kill people! 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

[sage2021]

I have never ever played a video game in my lifetime.

[clampfan101]

I’ll always love video games. I see them as not only games, but art. I dream to make at least one in my lifetime, which is getting easier,(or ant least more accessible), over time!

[Billlewis]

No; if anything, I accelerated playing them, stopping only when the video and pinball arcades disappeared in the late 2000's, having been supplanted by TV and online games. Doing almost anything up close, in real life, beats doing it online.

[XXblack88]

I never been a big gamer growing up I would normally want to be outside. but no I'm one of those adults who acts like a big kid still goes to the arcade etc.

[Crimsyjo]

Nahhh I still play. They're very bonding to do with others.

[TallAnon]

As a game developer, obviously yes.
We have tons of data to show thay people growing up with games don't generally stop, they do play games differently

[Finchie40]

I wouldn’t say i stopped playing. but i definitely don’t play like i use to , my video game time is very limited and not really a priority to me like it was when I was a kid

[purplepoppy]

Yes it's called growing up. Not playing childish video games is part of what makes you an adult.

[NicholasRedone]

@purplepoppy I see many immature 20 and 30 year old and older people both in GAG and in reality lol 😅😆 why don't people act their actual age lol 😆

[NicholasRedone]

@purplepoppy I have fond memories of PC and Wii and similar games - ahh grand theft auto, San Andreas, IV, more

[NicholasRedone]

Even Vice City or Miami Vice lol 😆

[beenherebefore]

Not really, I still play video games. Often when I'm bored or to kill time.

[RHK36]

Nah... just had less time as an adult. I think gaming is just a hobby. I grew up playing basketball, doesn't mean that now that I'm older then I guess I need to grow out of basketball. People can like whatever they want just don't get lost in it.

[SamWinchester058]

I never stopped playing. It's a form of spending time with friends for me. Especially friends from out of state.

[Dongie]

I was never into them that much. Except for the arcade level when I was 18-19 years old. Then with Playstation I caught myself playing Tiger Wood golf and when I looked up it had been 8 hours. So I didn't play anymore.

[Shiprex]

I wen't through a spell in the 90s when I was into online games but lost interest after I travelled abroad

[Surely]

I never played video games a lot as a youngster. Because I wasn’t exposed to them. Since they were not in the stores in area. As you age. The games got more Sophisticated. So the old ones went by the way of the dinosaurs.

[exitseven]

Yes. But I work in IT and after working with computers all day I do not want to play with them at night

[DryGermanGuy]

It has gotten rarer and rarer that I play games. And switched from desktop to mobile.

[Osborne775]

I might be to young to answer this question but i still play video games

[DJB72]

I'm 53. I just play strategy games - Age of Empires sometimes.

[new-person]

No, I'm 47 and still play. The only thing that changes is new morr complex responsibilities that get in the way of playing freely.

[DrPepper12]

No. Video games are for EVERYBODY!! Many nursing homes are encouraging cooperative game play & skills.

[mrkdvsn]

I never STARTED playing video games. But I do enjoy some of the music from them, that I've heard on The Daily Doug's music reaction channel on YouTube

[dean55au]

I'm 56yo and still have a PS4 and play it now and then depending on my mood

[Geo1970]

I have never really been that interested in them throughout my life.

[andreasderjuengere]

Yes. I switched to computer games in the late 80's.

[llorando]

No, at 36 I'm still a big fan of video games and still play them regularly. Gran Turismo 4 will always be my all time favorite video game.

[Notherndude84]

Playing video games endlessly as an adult is not a trait women look for in a man. To me it’s a sign of a culture in decline.