How playing video games can improve your life during retirement

[LuckyTheDog]

The teenagers who were hooked on Pac-Man in the arcades and amusement parks of the early 1970s are getting ready for retirement, but many of them have never stopped playing video games. In fact, it doesn’t look like they are going to stop gaming anytime soon.

The percentage of U.S. gamers who are over age 50 has increased rapidly, from just 9 percent in 1999 to 27 percent in 2015, according to the Entertainment Software Association’s annual reports. This is a global trend. In Europe, a 2012 study by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe found that 27 percent of people between 55 and 64 played video games; in Australia in 2015, 41 percent of people between 65 and 74 played video games.

These numbers may seem big, but they are just the tip of an enormous iceberg. The silver-haired gamer generation is not nearly as large as the number of current high school and college students who are obsessed with gaming and e-sports. Today’s number – 37 million American gamers over 50 – could balloon to 105 million by 2045, if U.N. population predictions bear out and the share of gamers in the population remains the same as was found in a 2008 Pew Research Center study.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/video-games-improve-retirement/

[Archae]

1. I agree 100%.

I have 3 consoles, a PlayStation 2, Gamecube and Xbox 360, and regularly play games.

And I'm 56 years old.

[LuckyTheDog]

9. I play games on my cell phone and tablet a lot

I never really liked using the consoles -- to complicated for me. But I do play on the XBox with my 14-year-old son sometimes. He enjoys kicking my butt.

I'm 53.

[Ohio Joe]

2. I have no plans to stop gaming

At 52, im taking a weeks vacation in June to play No Mans Sky on release

[Javaman]

4. Right. There. With. You.

did you see the recent 20 minute long game demo?

holy crap!

[Ohio Joe]

7. Yes... I posted it in the Gaming Group

I added it to the No Mans Sky thread.

[daleanime]

3. Thank goodness.....

thought I was the only one.

[Javaman]

5. I have a feeling there are a lot of closeted older gamers out there...

I play left 4 dead quite a bit and most of the people I play with are over 50. (I'm 52)

[trotsky]

6. My wife and I were discussing this on a visit to a nursing home.

Seems like it will be a great entertainment option to keep our minds active when we reach that state.

[Shrike47]

8. World of Warcraft, far too many hours a day. And I'm 68.

[PCPrincess]

10. Awesome! My Entire Family Played WoW

Me and my son, my sister (both of us in our forties), their children, both my father and mother (in their sixties) all played WoW.

[surrealAmerican]

11. Pac-man came out in 1980, not "the early 1970s".

You would think the author could at least have looked it up.

[EX500rider]

13. yeah I didn't see my 1st video game till mid '70's and that was pong..

....and that wasn't at home but $.25 on a arcade machine.

[Demonaut]

12. Guilty...TF2

[Initech]

14. First time I played Wii Bowling was at my grandma's retirement home.

[HughBeaumont]

15. 46-year-young strictly retro gamer here . . .

I plan on visiting Funspot, the Pennsylvania Coin Operated Hall Of Fame And Museum and several other places when I get some more time and money. Also constructing a multi-game retro console with an X-Arcade Tankstick in the spring (I know, it's spring already, but it still feels like winter in Cleveland).