Nearly 70 percent of older gamers say they’re an afterthought in video game development: survey

Older gamers are feeling left out of the video game space, according to a new study from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) — a group supporting more than 38 million people over the age of 50.

People over 50 make up a significant proportion of gamers, but some feel that developers aren’t taking notice, the survey found.

Almost 70 percent of older players said they felt their demographic was an afterthought for game developers.

About 45 percent of people in this age range play video games at least once a month. This includes everything from mobile games — such as Wordle or Candy Crush — to more traditional video games on consoles or PCs.

One game in particular made a big impact in the older gaming community, AARP found: Wordle. The daily word guessing game, now owned by The New York Times, took the world by storm in 2021 and made an impact as a game that was popular among all age demographics.

Older gamers tend to prefer puzzle, logic and word games — and prefer using their mobile phones. However, the small proportion of console gamers has also doubled since 2019 — now at 28 percent.

That’s about the same level as in 2019, but an increase from earlier figures, according to the study.

More women play games than men among the older demographic, making up 53 percent compared to 48 percent of men. That trend tracks in quantity of play as well, as 52 percent of women play video games every day compared to 37 percent of men, the survey found.

While the study found that COVID-19 didn’t have a large impact overall on the number of older gamers, there were small increases among demographics within the over-50 population of gamers, like women and people of color.

The survey also found that over the course of six months, the average older gamer is now spending nearly 3.5 more hours playing, increasing from 8.5 to 12 hours.