Age Differences in Associations with Digital Gaming

Seniors are an underrepresented group as digital gamers, but also as a focus of study in digital gaming research. We know relatively little about senior gamers, in particular about their needs and motivations to engage in digital gaming. The current explorative study used a free association technique to gather seniors’ perceptions, experiences, and domain knowledge about digital gaming. For reasons of comparison, young adults were also included in the study to allow us to identify associations that are unique to the senior population. From the study new and interesting insights were gathered about seniors’ digital gaming knowledge, which appears to be more limited and less up-to-date than the knowledge of young adults. In addition, seniors seem to hold serious concerns about the negative effects of the digital gaming activity on gamers. These factors could create a barrier for seniors to engage in digital gaming. The findings presented in this paper provide potential directions for game design and marketing to overcome seniors’ obstacles to gaming. Author