Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Gamer after a certain age
Does gaming have an age limit? Some would say that gaming is only for younger people because when you are young life is simpler. Young people dont have to worry about stuff like tomorrow or if you make enough money to pay your debts or search for a better job and this list can go on and on.
A kid or an adolescent is not subjected to real stress as grownups are, they come home after school, finish their homework and whats left to do? Some prefer to go out, others to read a book or study some more but for many this is the perfect time for gaming. You turn on your computer and play the latest games, without any restrains. You could say that buying games or having a good computer at this age is difficult, because you can only get money from your allowance or from your parents. There is no law to stop kids from pirating games and so they have access to almost any game on the market (dont!), maybe kids dont have the best computers on the market to play the latest games but is there anything parents would not do for their child?
Being young not only gives you a whole lot of free time but it also makes you more competitive than at any other time in your life, because you want to win, you want to be the best and in multiplayer games the most important thing is: Victory! And with a sharper mind and faster reflexes than adults, online gaming replaces the backyard playground. This is the reason why online games target a younger audience, thats why sometimes the discussions can get so tense in game chats and most of the time they get so vulgar and immature. Im not saying adults cant act like but kids are known for internet cockiness. Everybody acts weirder when they are young its the testosterone in you that makes you do crazy things and its so much easier to be verbaly agressive on the internet where you are hidden behind a screen and a keyboard.
But being a young gamer is not about raging or swearing at other players or winning all the time, is about the patience you have to play your games, to find every secret, explore every corner of the map or listen carefully to every dialogue. The patience you have when the real life didnt get to you yet, to ruin everything.
But as you grow up things become complicated in such a short period of time and you cant prepare for this, the priority of your hobbies is moved to second or third place and it remain there forever. Even if you can make time for gaming, you dont have the patience for all the good games on the market so you start to filter them as much as possible and you end up playing less of them.
I remember myself in high school, not missing a single title, now I’m 27 years old and I bought over 100 games that I will never get to play. I don’t have the time nor the patience anymore so I play only the games that I think are worth of my time.
Scientists say that after the age of 20, the human mind starts to slowly loose some of its keen edge and this affects everyone, even gamers. As time passes by, the fingers become slower, the eyes get tired faster, your reflexes get slower and over time so does the ability to learn new things and at some point you find yourself using predictable tactics all the time, missing enemies that are easy targets and making all kinds of mistakes. You ask yourself why? Blame the age... The atom is merciless with everything.
There is a reason why many of the professional gamers end their career between the ages of 28 and 30, this seems like the barrier for high-level gaming, nobody needs a pro-gamer with a slow APM especially when the young ones are on the top of their games.
But this means we gamers should find a new hobby? NO! It happens to everybody, whether you are a gamer, an athlete, a writer or any other hobby, there is always a barrier of age and when you reach it things change and you have to treat your passion in a different way. You dont have to give up, maybe you dont shoot your enemies as good as before or your strategy is predictable but this doesnt mean you can no longer enjoy games.
Hobbies are something we do because we like it and it relaxes us. We dont have to be the first all the time to enjoy the time we spend gaming. Playing games is an activity that some refuse to understand, maybe because its a newer concept that older generations cant grasp, but despite that, our ranks get bigger every year and gaming is not limited only to consoles, PCs and internet but its slowly taking over TV as well with dedicated channels broadcasting live e-sport matches.
I can’t see myself not playing a game at least once in a while, I often think about the future and the time when I’ll be old and I imagine myself still watching e-sports tournaments and reading the latest news about games (Im crazy like that!!). Gaming is one of the things I enjoy the most and unless senility stops me, nothing will!
Nodrim
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