This document discusses gaming trends among older adults and some key findings from a new study. It provides statistics showing that the average game player is 30 years old, 47% of players are women, and casual games appeal most to those over 30. A new study found that regular and occasional gamers among seniors aged 63+ reported lower depression and better daily functioning than non-gamers. The document promotes AARP's online games and resources for older adult gamers.

1. Bits on Gaming and the 50+
What’s Next Boomer Business Summit, 12 March 2013
By Mike Lee, AARP 1

2. General stats on • Consumers spent $24.75 billion on video
games, hardware and accessories in 2011.
gaming…
• Purchases of digital content accounted for
31 percent of game sales in 2011,
generating $7.3 billion in revenue.
• The average U.S. household owns at least
one dedicated game console, PC or
smartphone.
• The average game player is 30 years old
http://www.theesa.com/ and has been playing games for 12 years.
• The average age of the most frequent game
purchaser is 35 years old.
• Forty-seven percent of all game players are
women. In fact, women over the age of 18
represent a significantly greater portion of
the game-playing population (30 percent)
than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent). 2

3. More than 200 million people worldwide play
General stats on casual games via the Internet. In 2010, the
casual gaming… world wide connected casual games industry
had revenues of nearly $6.00 billion on mobile,
iPhone, social networks, PC, Mac and Xbox LIVE
Arcade platforms.
Casual games appeal to people of all ages,
gender and nationalities. A majority of those
who purchase casual games, however, are
http://casualgamesassociation.org/
over 30 and female. In addition, casual games
are usually played for a short period of time,
from five minutes to 20 minutes though it's
common for people to play game after game
for hours.
Over 400 casual games are developed and
launched on major web portals, thousands of
iPhone and thousands of social games are
launched every year. Typically, the Top 20
games each year generate the majority of the
revenue.
3

4. http://games.aarp.org
4

5. AARP Games are a significant source of traffic and engagement on the site,
representing 62% of the site’s total page views.
40%
Source: Adobe SiteCatalyst, 2012

6. Although Games users account for only 13% of all users on the site, their
engagement with Games is high.
40%
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• Games users on average consume 64 Games pages in
a month.
• The average user on AARP.org consumes 13 pages in
a month.
Source: Adobe SiteCatalyst, 2012

7. Consumption of Games on mobile devices has grown
significantly, up 69% in 2012 to 2.2MM page views.
1.3MM
40%
Source: Adobe SiteCatalyst, 2012

8. New AARP.org Mobile Web Games 8

9. A plug for http://gamesforchange.org

10. New Study: Successful aging through digital games:
Socioemotional differences between older adult gamers and
Non-gamers
• Study to be published in the July 2013 edition of
Computers in Human Behavior and available now
online.
• Researchers recruited 140 adults, age 63+—with
average age of 77—from senior centers, religious
centers, and senior living apartments
• The survey revealed almost a third of the seniors
played at least once a week, mostly casual games
• Just over 17 percent played every day

11. New Study: Successful aging through digital games:
Socioemotional differences between older adult gamers and
Non-gamers
• The seniors also took part in a battery of
perceptual, cognitive, and affective tests.
These included the widely used CES-D scale
for depressive symptomatology
• Found that regular and occasional gamers to
have significantly lower mean levels of
negative affect
• Gaming grandparents reported significantly
better instrumental/everyday functioning
than non-gamers
http://news.ncsu.edu/r
eleases/wms-allaire-
social-2013/

13. mslee@aarp.org
Twitter: curiouslee
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