Too Old For Video Games? Not This Madden Fan

When I was a kid, my mom always used to talk about the day I would grow out of playing video games. Today I'm 24 years old, and Madden still garners the same attention from me as it did when I was 12. You might even say I'm more into Madden than I was at that age. When I was 12 all I did was play the game. Now I not ony play it, but talk about it on web sites and the Madden Nation radio show. I have known people who said they grew out of video games. Some guys that I knew when they were younger who used to be avid gamers have since put their controllers down and moved on to other things. Is this a sign that I haven't reached the same level of maturity they have, or is there another reason why some of us continue to play while others don't? Could I too one day wake up and decide that I'm too old for this?

From my experience in the Madden community, I have seen a wide variety of gamers. Male, female, as young as 9 years old and as old as 50. There is no question in my mind that older people do still enjoy video games. I recently read an article about an 80 year old woman named Doris Self who plays the old school classic Qbert on a competitive level. Surely she's not immature for her age. But what is it that keeps someone like Doris interested in games, while some in their mid 20s have decided that it's just not for them? I'm not sure I'll ever find out the answer to this question, but I do think I know what it is that will keep me playing video games into my 80s like Doris Self if I'm fortunate enough to live that long. Realism.

At the time I started playing sports games, they weren't really an accurate representation of the sport that was being portrayed. Twenty years later I'm using real sports strategy in order to learn how to be a better Madden player. With Next Gen upon us we are entering a new era of realism in video games. Player models in Madden will now look so real that you can recognize certain players just by looking at their face. Anyone who saw the shot of Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander a few months back will agree. The realism of video games may now attract people to gaming that weren't even all that interested in the past. Football looks so real in a video game setting that football fans who aren't gamers may become gamers. People who have certain interests may find that there is a game out there that realistically depicts their hobby. And these are people that aren't already gamers that we're talking about, not someone who is already an avid Madden and gaming fan.

The closer that Madden comes to looking like a real football game, the more I want to play it. I have seen the game improve by leaps and bounds in the time that I have been playing, and it gets better every year. With all of this improvement in technology and the strides made towards realism, how could I all of a sudden put the game down? I'm definitely not going to stop following football and if Madden continues to look more and more like real football then it doesn't seem likely that I'll want to stop playing. I'm not just a fan of Madden, but all kinds of video games. The extent to which gamers are being immersed into what can sometimes seem like a realistic world is incredible. We're on the cusp of some amazing things when it comes to video games, so when I talk to someone who says they just don't have time for that any more I just can't relate.

When I was younger, a lot of people still felt like video games were for two groups of people. Kids and nerds. But as I sit here and type this message to you, video games are for everyone. There is something out there for just about any type of person you can think of. Games allow people to exhibit their competitive nature, show off their creativity, live out their fantasies, and even vent frustrations from time to time by going on a Grand Theft Auto shooting spree. This is a time when more and more people are picking up controllers to join in on the action. How anyone who has a history of playing games can call it quits now is inconceivable. One thing I am fairly sure of is that no matter how old I am, I'll always be interested in where gaming is headed and want to be a part of the gaming community. There is no age limit on fun as far as I'm concerned. I think Doris would agree.