I’m 33 years old.  I invest money for a Pension Fund and have a wife and three kids.  Not exactly the typical “Gamer” profile.  Or so you’d think…

I was having a conversation with my mother the other day where the classic question, “Aren’t you too old for games?” was used.  (And not by me…)

For a split second I considered what she’d asked but then I thought, “I enjoy games!  And I’m also old enough to do what the hell I like.” (My wife has other ideas…)

It got me thinking about this generation gap, the “too old for gaming” stigma and what this meant for society as a whole.  (Profound I know – it must have been a slow TV day.)

Generation “G”, The Generation of Gamers

Generation “G”, born after around 1970, has grown up with their fingers on a keyboard or a joystick in their hand, they’ve never known a time without games.  They know them as great development tools for problem solving and vehicles for discovering one’s identity.  Games allow us to explore as well as disobey societal conventions and use many different mental and social skills.

Previous generations have never seen games as anything more than a toy and struggle to comprehend the depth and the social challenges and emotion created by the games of today.  After all, their gaming experience stopped with Pacman… ;)

Gaming has created huge differences in perceptions about how different generations look at the world.

What does this mean for Society?

Gamers are loners, right?  Wrong!  Especially with the introduction of online gaming, Generation “G” is an extremely sociable place!  In the good old days people had a group of friends, usually from the same town, all with the same ideals and beliefs.

Nowadays, if you’re from Generation “G” you’ve still got the same set of offline friends but you’ve also got 100 people on your Xbox friends list, 100 people on your PSN friends list, God knows how many friends on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and probably interact with thousands more people on different forums and the like.

You’re exposed to people from all over the world, from all walks of life, different ages, different ideals, beliefs, cultures.  This can only be a good thing.  It promotes diversity and encourages an understanding of empathy and equality in a way that the offline world can’t.

Translate this into real life and in theory we should be a generation that can work together, look past differences to overcome problems and be fully adept to globalisation.

Shaping the Future

In terms of business and the economy, the gaming industry has inadvertently created a generation of natural entrepreneurs.  Gamers have strengths that weren’t standard in previous generations. They can be almost maniacally dedicated and productive; for them, solving the problem can be a rewarding obsession.

Gamers already have the skills to be great leaders, they’re motivated to contribute and to overcome whatever obstacles are in their way to get to the (pretty elevated) place they believe they should be.

Gamers are also resilient. They’re not afraid to fail because they know it’s survivable. Gamers fail literally thousands of times on the way to whatever success they have. They learn valuable lessons each time and each time makes them even more determined than the last.

They’re also savvy – it’s tough to pull one over on them!  They may be a little overconfident in their own abilities, and they may not believe something doesn’t work until they actually see it fail themselves. But with some focus they should be able to channel their best instinct, which is their love of being the hero.

In essence, our workplaces should be thriving, competitive, productive places driven by the need to succeed.  Problems should be easily overcome by lateral thinking and teamwork and cultural differences should be a thing of the past now that the world is a much smaller, less divided place. 

(Either that or they’re just full of people counting down the hours before they can get back to playing FIFA…)

What does Generation “G” mean for the Gaming Industry?

Previous generations aren’t gamers so there’s no market there.  I’m from Generation “G” however.  Gaming’s always been a part of my life and to be honest I can always see it being a source of entertainment for me in some form or another for years to come.  Every generation that comes after me is going to be the same.

Let’s say (fingers crossed) that I’ve live a long (successful and enjoyable) life.  That could be 40-50 years worth of gaming of some sort or another.

Now, I’m under no illusion that I’ll be sat there playing FIFA 38 when I’m 60 but for my generation gaming has grown to become such an integral part of society’s entertainment much like television did over the last 20 years.

This should give gaming developers something to think about.  There’s no market for 60 year old gamers at the moment but in 30 years time there potentially will be. 

Who knows what kind of games we’ll be playing but I’m sure whatever they are there’ll be plenty of money to be made.

The gaming industry’s in quite a unique position at the moment.  Although in the current climate times are tough, the gaming industry has potentially got 40-50 years of extraordinary growth ahead, generation after generation, as new gamers emerge to take the place of old non-gamers until my generation, Generation “G” is right at the top.

Hopefully this will mean eventually there’ll be more jobs and opportunities.  New niches will open up.  More money will be available to spend on development and hopefully more competition creating better quality and value.

Good times!?  We’ll have to wait and see…

In Conclusion.

I think the conclusion to all my rumination is that, in hindsight, when asked “Aren’t you too old for games?” I should have replied, “No mum, I’m from Generation “G” and we’re taking over the world!”