As Gamers Age, The Appeal of Competition Drops The Most

I'm 36. IN the early broadband days (2001), i've spent HOURS upon HOURS playing Medal of Honor online, Soldier of Fortune 2, CS etc.

I still play competitive. I play Battlefield 4, Hardline and Black Ops 3 and I play to win.

Carefully choosing loadouts, tactis etc.

The only thing that has changed for me, is the time I put into it.

I'm married and have 2 kids, so I don't clock as many hours as I used to, but still play enough to be competitive.

I clocked roughly 140 hours in BF4, well above 200 hours in BLOPS 2 and BLOPS3's counter is still rising.

I'm still as fast I used to be and still use the same tactics I used to. Recently started BLOPS3 and people immediately accused me of being a hacker because I (lvl 3) shot their lvl 46, prestige 5 in the ass 5 times in a row.

The only thing that has gone downhill is the community. Cursing 12 year olds and just plain retarded assholes spouting stuff for no reason at all, griefers etc.
 
I can kinda agree, however for me it's not that I don't enjoy the competitive side, it's that I don't have a game that grabs me enough to care about its multiplayer. Coupled with this is that my irl friends and I rarely, if ever, play the same online games and I therefore couldn't care less if I lose on a team with a bunch of randoms.

I do feel my competitive side shine in fighting games though, as that's a 1v1 situation.
 
Not only competitive but action games in general have lost a lot of their appeal for me. Slow RPGs and strategy games all the way now. I'm 35 btw.
 
Fugu said:
This is a really narrow, pop psychology way of looking at competition.
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Seems to me that there is ample scientific evidence for this. Play fighting, especially for boys, is often seen as practicing for intrasexual competition later on, or can even be the competition itself. Competition determines social dominance which in turn determines number of mates. E.g.

Geary, D. C., Byrd-Craven, J., Hoard, M. K., Vigil, J., & Numtee, C. (2003). Evolution and development of boys’ social behavior. Developmental Review, 23(4), 444-470.

Olson, C. K. (2010). Children's motivations for video game play in the context of normal development. Review of General Psychology, 14(2), 180.

If you're in a long, stable relationship, you're no longer competing for sex, and so the desire to assert social dominance diminishes.

I guess what I'm saying is, it would be interesting to check for a correlation or confound with having a spouse, and also whether getting a kid did in fact turn me into an emasculated couch potato.
 
I've never been a competitive person, though right now competitive games are more appealing to me than they ever were before. Though I'm only 21 so eh.
 
LordRaiden said:
I'm 36. IN the early broadband days (2001), i've spent HOURS upon HOURS playing Medal of Honor online, Soldier of Fortune 2, CS etc.

I still play competitive. I play Battlefield 4, Hardline and Black Ops 3 and I play to win.

Carefully choosing loadouts, tactis etc.

The only thing that has changed for me, is the time I put into it.

I'm married and have 2 kids, so I don't clock as many hours as I used to, but still play enough to be competitive.

I clocked roughly 140 hours in BF4, well above 200 hours in BLOPS 2 and BLOPS3's counter is still rising.

I'm still as fast I used to be and still use the same tactics I used to. Recently started BLOPS3 and people immediately accused me of being a hacker because I (lvl 3) shot their lvl 46, prestige 5 in the ass 5 times in a row.

The only thing that has gone downhill is the community. Cursing 12 year olds and just plain retarded assholes spouting stuff for no reason at all, griefers etc.
Click to expand...

Preach on, 38, 2 kids under 7, I still play to win, but don't :)

I am finding my interest shifting back towards driving and sims (like kerbal, war thunder stuff) and not instabooting COD all the time.
 
Always been an RPG person, and that hasn't really changed since I was young. Never played a lot of competitive games because they seemed boring.
 
I used to play DOD 1.3 for hours every night and really gave a shit about winning, capping, my kdr.

Now I maybe play a couple of hours of cod a week, don't engage the community, and don't give a shit if I'm even 1:1. I just don't have the time to be competitive anymore. It takes dedication and practice, and it's also just not relaxing in the way I want video games to be now.
 
Outside of silly single screen mu!tiplayer stuff at parties I have stopped playing competitive games. They just aren't fun to me and everyone online is in party chat so online multiplayer is really boring.
 
Well, I was never heavily into competitive multiplayer, but my interest in it has declined significantly as I have gotten older--so I suppose it is accurate for me.
 
This is true for me and I'm only 27. I've realized that competitive multiplayer has mostly lost its appeal for me and I'm far, far more into laying back and relaxing into single player with strong narrative components like TLOU, Bioshock, Mass Effect, The Witcher, etc.

I still enjoy the insane mayhem of MP games like Battlefield but my MP mindset has changed from wild competitiveness to just having a good time in matches. I don't have to win to have fun.
 
I think you should've quoted the last bit which I think is important to keep in mind:
There’s always a risk of extrapolating longitudinally from cross-section age data. After all, there may be generational cohort effects that are separate from the effects of aging. But what’s interesting is that our data shows consistent age trends in both the pre- and post- 35 age groups. In other words, the changes in motivations after age 35 are consistent with how motivations are changing prior to age 35.
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If you ask me, there are definitely fundamental differences between 30+ gamers and the younger generation in the games we played growing up and what's been more prominent. Also: the dawn of e-sports.
 
I completely agree with this. My motivation for online competitive play is pretty much at an all time low. In my 20s, Ghost Recon and Halo 2 were the most epic moments ever for competitive play. As I moved into WoW, arena's were fun however as I have continued that journey and subsequently adopted PC as my main platform, the competitive world of gaming has literally fallen off a cliff.
 
I used to be really into online gaming but now I never touch it. I know my gaming skills are diminishing as I get older. Getting my ass handed to me by kids is not fun. Single player games are my jam again just like when I was a kid.
 
Well, real world responsibilities mean that maintaining a >1 k/d is not worth spending time on, considering the effort required to compete with kids that have >50 hours a week of leisure time.

I don't believe in the arguments that older players suck because of slow reaction speeds, poor eyesight and such. I think it's purely the fact that older people just don't have anywhere near as much free time to "git gud".

There's probably some psychology there too. Younger people are more competitive because they value social pecking orders, whereas being in a stable relationship and having kids means you're naturally going to be much more cooperative.

Plus the age mix means that kids like to compete because a teenager wants to beat the adults, but it's embarrassing and ignoble for a 40 year old to be dominating a bunch of youngsters.
 
I dont know if 25 is old enough but I have adult issues (job, girlfriend, rent) that i didnt have at 16. I think videogames are one of the few outlets i was ever competitive with. My brother is a few years younger then me so maybe he helps keep me competitive but my favorite games are balanced around competition mobas, fps, fighting games its all gravy. I know ill never have the time again to be l33t but i can still throw down ;).
 
I got really into Halo 5. But now I'm realising thay in order to stay decent at it, I have to play daily and I don't want to do that.

I'm starting to lean more torwards just playing co op or single player games. Just less stress and don't require me to practice to stay decent.
 
Nyx said:
I still play online in competitive games, but I have stopped caring about my rank.
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Yup, this is exactly me. I just like to hop online for some team deathmatch in games like Call of Duty, Titanfall...

Otherwise, i still enjoy a good coop game with friends if they have the same game. I miss coop campaigns like Resident Evil 5 or Gears of War, they're so much fun.
 
Teletraan1 said:
I used to be really into online gaming but now I never touch it. I know my gaming skills are diminishing as I get older. Getting my ass handed to me by kids is not fun. Single player games are my jam again just like when I was a kid.
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Agreed. I just don't have the time to build up skills in games. Same reason why I usually play on normal or slightly easier difficulty levels. I want to enjoy a game, see all of the content and then move on. I am a gaming tourist.


Also, at 38 I no longer have any friends who play video games.
 
I'm actually finding it to be the opposite in my case. I'm 27 and I'm more competitive than I've ever been, while at the same time I find myself having a very difficult time seeing single player games through to the end. All I want to do is spend my time gaming on playing SF. Needless to say things are rough right now lol.
 
The mind is willing but the body will not comply. We're approaching an unprecedented number of older players. The industry has undiscovered markets that need to be tapped.
 
You can still be older and enjoy fast pace multiplayer games as long as you know your skills are below average than what they used to be. The real solution is to play team games that have heavy support roles like a medic where K/D isn't important.
 
I kind of agree.

What I have found (I'm 36) is that a lot of my gaming friends now have serious time constraints.

They CAN'T put the needed time in to get competent enough to compete well, and so they get super frustrated when they try and play. Then they move toward more single player experiences.
 
Went the opposite for me. I'm 35 and hardly even consider playing games with no competitive aspect. I burn through those and never touch them again.
 
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