So, hear me out.
I’m a 47 year old guy and I’m not ashamed to say that I enjoy video games. I always have, from playing Head over Heels on a Speccy +2 to ESO and Valorant on my self built PC.
Due to various life circumstances, I’m also on the dating scene and to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema. When I say that I like them it’s usually meet with an “oh dear” or a “my son would probably love to talk to you about them, I find them really boring”
I have two boys, both teenagers, both play all the time and sometimes we all play together (although they are better as they have more time to apply to games). Their friends are amazed that I will talk about games with them, that I know someone about games and that I play games. None of their parents want to talk with them about what is effectively their main hobby that they do all the time (big sad).
So the question, there must be some sort of cut off age at which video games are no longer an acceptable pastime. Is it absolute age based (nothing after 35) or is it something to do with the progression of games into popular culture and people born after, say, 1986 will not see it as unacceptable?
I don’t have an answer, I just think it’s an interesting question. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
Edit to add: I’m not planning on stopping through peer pressure, just wondering about the phenomenon!
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There’s absolutely no age cut off for video games. I would even go further and say that more seniors should play video games.
But, I also wouldn’t be too judgy with people who think video games are for kids. This is all thanks to decades of marketing. Atari, the first popular video game console, was sold along side TVs and other electronics and was targeted towards everyone. But then Nintendo decided to market their console as a toy, instead of a consumer electronics product. Also, they had to pick a “boy” vs “girl” aisle, and they picked “boy”, which is why video games aren’t seen as girly.
No, if that doesnt affect negatively your life there’s nothing wrong about gaming. That can actually be a nice way to bond with your kids
to most women I meet, around my age, video games are anathema.
You should be grateful for them filtering themselves out of your dating pool so quickly. Not all red flags are that obvious.
No such thing as a cut off age! I guess it’s down to personal preferences and you may find people who are into video games well into their seventies. I can definitely see my husband and myself playing MMOs in a retirement home 😂.
If the people you’re matching up with judge you for having a hobby which is no different than, say, watching TV series on Netflix, maybe you need to weed them out.
Yeah, this exactly. Use it as an opportunity to realise you’re not on the same page as this person and that’s fine. Better to be picky, imo. Live your best single life, only choose a partner who chooses all of you too.
While I do think there’s probably more younger people across the spectrum playing games than older folk, I still think you can find the person you’re looking for. It’s definitely become more socially acceptable I think for younger generations it’s just become a more normal thing integrated into social life. Oh we can’t go out? I’m down for some Minecraft or Animal Crossing, etc. I’ve known lots of women over the years that were “cool” and “attractive” but were heavy into video games. Older folk in general skew towards thinking they are smashing or juvenile. We had recently pitched a club at my library district, but once it reached the older board people, they didn’t understand why one would even pose the idea in such an “institution,” totally missing why gaming can be an incredibly nourishing hobby for everyone in some form. But yeah, even at my job I tend to find most older women roll their eyes at the thought of video games (I work with mostly middle aged women 40-60 with a few younger aged folk sprinkled in there). Games as a hobby has become more progressive aiming for all sorts of people, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, etc. have all broken down a lot of walls for younger generations. Obviously misogyny is gonna still exist thanks to how early gaming marketing skewed perspective of video games as well as shooters and their tone being heavily ostracizing to women. Games like Fortnite let you gun down Goku as Ariana Grande, and shit like that does go a long ways to reaching different people.
I’m only in my early 30s and have no intention of not playing video games because I hit a certain age. I think a lot about this old lady I used to follow on Twitter who would review JRPGs and how cool she is (unfortunately I stopped using Twitter and don’t remember her handle). I think these days, it’s less likely for it to be “weird”, whereas I remember being a kid and hearing people say it was childish.
If she has a youtube channel as well it might be Food4Dogs.
It kind of warms my heart to see people of all ages still gaming. If people are allowed to enjoy other forms of entertainment, gaming should be there as well.
YES!! That’s who it is! Thank you for reminding me of her username.
Be 80 and play FIFA, it’s fine. There’s no age where you are obliged to put down your controller for the last time. But it shouldn’t be your first answer while you’re dating, and definitely not your only one.
Being a gamer, as an identity, has a lot of baggage.
Having gaming be your only interest or hobby is associated with being an unambitious self-interested person who intends to do as a little as possible, as long as possible. The recognisable games are marketed towards kids/teens with time to burn.
Imagine your date’s interest was “moderating Reddit”, “watching TikTok”, or “reading Instagram”. That’s what ‘gaming’ sounds like: your hobby is media consumption.
There’s no age where you aren’t allowed to consume media; but it’s worrying if that consumption is your identity, if consumption makes up your routine.
So it’s not actually about age - it’s about maturity and goal-setting.
When we’re younger, most of us live moment-by-moment. Media consumption offers no future, but it has a pleasurable present.
But as people age, people develop goals and interests that require more investment and focus, and they’re looking for people that are doing the same. A cutthroat economy demands people develop goals for financial stability, even if they still otherwise like games.
As we age, we stop looking for somebody to hang out with, but to build a life with.
So once the people you’re talking to have interests for the future, “I enjoy my present doing my own thing” doesn’t offer them anything. If they don’t play games, they don’t even know what games are capable of. Maybe one day they’d enjoy playing Ultimate Chicken Horse with you.
But right now, they just see the recognisable titles that want to monopolise children’s time, and assume you’re doing that. They picture you spending 20+ hours a week playing Fortnite. And there is an age cut-off where it’s no longer socially-acceptable to be a child.
It’s not that video games are bad, but they’re a non-answer. They want to know what you do that’s good, and a non-answer implies you don’t have a good answer at all, and that makes video games ‘bad’.
I agree that it shouldn’t be the only thing you do, but if somebody dismisses your interests while they know almost nothing about it - then good riddance. Reading books is media consumption and a very broad statement as well - is that a non-answer too?
Also I bet it’s not like these people are curing cancer or feeding starving orphans in their free time.
I think the distinction is that reading books implies you might have interesting discussions about ideas or themes. Video games do not imply that.
The reality is that there is a lot of excellent discussion in video game themes - Spec Ops: The Line, or dystopias like Cyberpunk 2077. Games have been political for as long as they’ve had any narrative structure at all. But video games have a reputation (and history) of being children’s toys, and the only people who understand their narrative power are also gamers.
Compare somebody who claims their hobby is watching arthouse films, versus somebody whose hobby is watching TikTok. They’re both watching videos play in front of them, but the assumption is that the former is consuming the content with a critical eye and learning from it; the latter is merely consuming it for shallow entertainment. The reductionist conclusion is that ‘Arthouse viewer’ can hold a conversation; ‘TikTok viewer’ cannot.
Then it’s dismissal due to somebody’s ignorance. If you are talking to this person, who knows nothing about games - why can’t they ask you to elaborate instead of assumptions? I feel like people are playing games with each other instead of just talking and being genuinely interested - and that is truly childish.
I agree, but you’re asking people to stop being people - and also removing the context of ‘dating’ from the equation.
Dating is work. First dates in particular are very much about first impressions - they’re not getting to know you on a deep level yet, they’re trying to build a quick profile to decide if doing so is even worth it. Such a process is all about assumptions, and anybody that claims it isn’t is not being honest with themselves.
I agree that as a couple get to know each other more, both of them should share their genuine interests with each other. It’s not about games being wrong or having to pretend you don’t like them (authenticity is important for building anything long-term).
But it’s recognising that they don’t look good in an interpersonal resumé, which is what the dating process is.
Add in OP’s demographic (47y man, seeking women), and gender roles in dating (men are initiators and women are selectors), which are still very entrenched in older generations. Men are expected to approach, escalate, and demonstrate what they offer her; women are expected to select from the many who approach them and assess if their intentions are positive or negative, if he’d make her life easier or harder.
Both genders have harmful expectations in dating: he is thirsty in the desert, she is drowning in the lake; they struggle to relate to each other’s roles or even covet them.
I bring this up because men in particular have additional pressure to have a really good resumé because it will be the make-or-break that decides if somebody with options will return interest. Video games have a stigma that make them a bad choice to put in a highlighted position on your proverbial resumé. You want your most impressive, relevant, or interesting answers at the forefront, and it looks bad if you don’t have any.
(It’s also entirely possible that ‘liking video games’ is not the real reason he is struggling with dating, but because the initial reaction he receives is often dismissive, he believes that it is.)
It’s also entirely possible that ‘liking video games’ is not the real reason he is struggling with dating, but because the initial reaction he receives is often dismissive, he believes that it is.
I mean, I’m an ugly bugger as well, maybe that’s counting against me 😂
That’s what ‘gaming’ sounds like: your hobby is media consumption.
It’s really weird that people who have “reading books” as their main hobby are not as stigmatized as their digital media counterparts. Is it the digital aspect that turns the hobby into weirdness?
Maybe - certainly generations always assume anything that younger people do is somehow worse than what they did, and the digital landscape is a part of that. When writing slates became accessible, the old guard complained it was ‘lazy’ because they didn’t have to remember it anymore. Any music popular among teenagers (especially teenage girls) is mocked as foolish, cringe, etc.
But I suspect like most hobbies, it’s mostly the following that determine our assumptions:
- history of the media and its primary audience (digital mediums are mostly embraced by youth; video games initially marketed to young children)
- accessibility; scarcity associated with prestige (eg: vital labour jobs are not considered ‘real jobs’ if they don’t require a degree)
- the kind of people we visibly see enjoying it (we mostly see children, teenagers, and directionless adults as gaming hobbyists)
You’re right, reading is not somehow more or less moral than video games. Many modern games have powerful narrative structure that is more impactful for being an interactive medium. Spec Ops: The Line embraces the players actions as the fundamentals of its message. Gamers are hugely diverse; more than half the US population actually plays games at this point, and platforms are rapidly approaching an almost even gender split. (Women may choose to play less or different games, and hide their identity online, but they still own ~40% of consoles.)
Games as a medium is also extremely broad. I don’t think you could compare games to ‘watching anime’ for example, so much as ‘the concept of watching moving pictures’, because they can range from puzzles on your phone, to narrative epics, to grand strategies, to interactive narratives.
So a better comparison for video games isn’t ‘reading books’ so much as reading in general, and are you reading Reddit, the news, fiction, or classic lit? What does your choice of reading mean?
So for your suggested hobby of ‘reading books’, one might assume any (or all) of the following:
- they are intelligent and introspective (or pretentious),
- they are educated (or think they’re better than you),
- they are patient and deliberate (or boring),
- they’d be interesting to discuss ideas with (or irrelevant blatherers).
Assuming everybody who reads is ‘smart’ is as much an assumption as assuming everybody who games is ‘lazy’, and the assumptions you make about the hobby are really assumptions you make about the typical person who chooses it. It may not be a guarantee, but its a common enough pattern.
TLDR: Ultimately? I think books have inflated status because it’s seen as a hobby for thinkers; people picture you reading Agatha Christie (but you could be reading Chuck Tingle, or comic books). Games have deflated status because it’s seen as a hobby for people who consume mindlessly - the people who know what games are capable of are the ones playing them, too.
Just want to say, your comments on this subject are very well thought out. I agree that perception plays a huge part of the idea of older people playing what most today still consider a kids hobby. I’m not sure when that would change, like you stated probably only when that hobby stopped being a primarily viewed as childs pastime. Im in line with OPs apprehension on revealing that I’m a big gaming hobbiest and honestly leave out mentioning it until I know the person better. Even in other environments, like work for example, I normally don’t list gaming as my primary hobby to others initially. I will say though I’ve seen upper management types start to even list gaming as a hobby now so I feel like some small progress has been made in pealing back the impression people have initially on gaming as an older person.
Thank you for your kind words.
I believe things will change as gaming becomes the norm. It already has changed in younger generations; its just that OP is old enough that most people his age don’t play. All hobbies and lifestyles come with superficial assumptions when viewed by the people who don’t have personal experience with them.
Say, a person who drinks wines is considered distinguished, but a person who drinks beers is not. Yet a wine-drinker might just like getting efficiently drunk, and the beer-drinker likes crafting IPAs in their garage.
We are rapidly moving to gaming being the norm. I still believe that if somebody asks ‘what do you do’ your answer should be something that prompts a conversation, but that’s because that’s how dating works, not because gaming is wrong. Gaming at all no longer has stigma among the majority of younger people. It’s the ones who grew up in a time that they were toys who still see them that way.
I think it’s the loud, annoying people who call themselves Gamers that give playing video game a bad rap
No, it’s because they understand that from books comes great literature and poetry, and they’ll be happy to think that’s what you mean when you say your hobby is books, until you clarify that they are the books in the “Dragonlance” Dungeons and Dragons novelization universe
I think it’s more of a generational thing than an age thing. Younger generations that grew up surrounded by games don’t think it’s weird and I while you do have less time to game as you get older I don’t think it’ll ever get weird.
Feels like up to 15-17 is normal for everyone, up to around 27 is a bit weird but ok. Above 30 people will see it as a red flag.
Seeing video gaming as a red flag is itself a red flag.
This is 2023. Playing video games is normal and has been for decades.
I agree with you, but this is the sentiment that a large number of people have.
Was about to say that there is no cutoff age. I distinctly remember my grandfather playing RPGs on the Super Nintendo when I was a kid. That man played most of his life and well into his older years. Do what you love to do man. Ignore those who don’t appreciate that you have a hobby you actually enjoy.
None. Games are just as valid art form and passtime as films, TV and reading and no one puts an age cap on those.
I’m in my late 50s and I’m a PC gamer on linux. I game more than ever now since gaming on linux is a complete joy right now, at least on Steam.
Gaming is something that I’ll be doing long after playing tennis or biking or hiking are options. If someone else (friend, family member, date) doesn’t like it, no sweat. I don’t like to do a lot of other things people like to do and can game on my own. If they can’t handle it, well, bullet dodged I guess.
It’s not a question of age, but of culture. Video game are no longer niche stuff for a handful of nerds. It’s a huge industry, like music or cinema.
People who say that games are childish are just trying to hide their ignorance.
I’m 40, but I play online with quite a few people who are my age or older. On the dating scene, I wouldn’t know because I’ve been married 19 years, but I’d guess that there is some reluctance from women (especially those who don’t also play) to have a partner who would fit the stereotypical “gamer ignoring his girlfriend” or dude who’s a misogynistic dick online who uses games as a way to flex his imaginary hyper masculinity.
My move has always been, and will always be, to prioritize people in the room, especially her, when I’m in the headset. If that means we lose, we lose. It’s just a game (though I love them and often get totally immersed). Most of my longtime gaming friends with families (I have two kids as well) completely understand, and I do the same when they have IRL interruptions.
As for if there’s a cutoff? HELL NO.
As for if there’s a generational gap? Hell yes…but I’d say you’re just at the bleeding edge. Keep doing you and looking for like minded people and you’ll just be the oldest of the “Old Man League Bball team, Videogames Edition”. My crew loves our version of that guy… and so does his long time partner. 🙂
That’s fair, I can see that people don’t want to be ignored and if your model for what gaming looks like is your son swearing at random strangers and throwing his controller across the room, I can see that you wouldn’t want to invite that into your life!
I wonder if sports hobbyists get the same? I see a lot of profiles that say they’re not interested in pictures of you with a fish so maybe the fisherman community is full of these complaints too 😁
Well here’s the thing: you’re an adult and as long as you’re not hurting anyone else, you can do whatever you want, forever.
