Gaming

There's absolutely no age cut off for video games. I would even go further and say that more seniors should play video games.

But, I also wouldn't be too judgy with people who think video games are for kids. This is all thanks to decades of marketing. Atari, the first popular video game console, was sold along side TVs and other electronics and was targeted towards everyone. But then Nintendo decided to market their console as a toy, instead of a consumer electronics product. Also, they had to pick a "boy" vs "girl" aisle, and they picked "boy", which is why video games aren't seen as girly.

So the question, there must be some sort of cut off age at which video games are no longer an acceptable pastime.

When you no longer enjoy it

"what is the age cut off for socially acceptable fun having" is what I read. Do what you enjoy and anyone saying you shouldn't do X, or you are too old to do Y aren't the type of people I associate with. Just turned 30 and I never plan to stop.

41 year old woman here. I was born with gaming, I will die with gaming. Do not hide your gaming from the get go. Put it in your profile. Its a huge part of my life, so finding that in a partner is a must in my book. There are women out there that share my sentiment, and some that just like games or don't care.

Do what you want!

Assuming you aren't ignoring other obligations, gaming is completely acceptable.

Anything else is pretentious.

bruhhhhhh.. 40somethings folks is what created the booming gaming industry. We can't stop now it'll crumble without us!!!

I don't think there "must" be an age cutoff where people are supposed to stop playing - instead, there's an age cutoff for where people didn't grow up with or have access to computers or gaming.

I was born right on the cusp of video games moving from niche nerd shit and becoming relatively mainstream. I can see that there's a clear gap between friends who game and friends who don't that nearly directly ties to whether or not they played games as a kid. A lot of the time for my generation, that's a socioeconomic division more than anything else. Computers were expensive as a kid, so most of my friends who grew up poor found other interests in childhood and grew up to be adults who don't really play games. The kids I grew up around whose families were more well-off have continued gaming as adults. Maybe less, maybe different games; but in many ways it's like asking what age someone is supposed to outgrow "having hobbies".

The older someone is today the less likely it is they had access to games and gaming, and often the more intimidating they find learning about computers and gaming - and the more time they've had to find some other hobby that they find compelling.

There definitely is a thing in the dating market where some people can be particularly judgmental about gaming. Personally, I've found that is loudest and largest for some of the more ... "serial" daters I know, who have found themselves in relationships with lots of different people and have found that gaming, or identifying as a "gamer" tends to correlate with other bigger issues. There's also the side concern when something that's big in your life isn't something they can relate to - a little like the ultra-fan Sports Dudes where all of every game day will always be booked off for watching the games with the boys.

I think in regards to the dating market, it's less that anyone needs to "grow out of" gaming, and more that adults are more expected to have a mature relationship with their hobbies, gaming included. And given that there are negative connotations about degenerate adult gamers not really grown up, that may be something to keep in mind regarding how you present that hobby and how you talk about your relationship with it.

Be 80 and play FIFA, it's fine. There's no age where you are obliged to put down your controller for the last time. But it shouldn't be your first answer while you're dating, and definitely not your only one.

Being a gamer, as an identity, has a lot of baggage.

Having gaming be your only interest or hobby is associated with being an unambitious self-interested person who intends to do as a little as possible, as long as possible. The recognisable games are marketed towards kids/teens with time to burn.

Imagine your date's interest was "moderating Reddit", "watching TikTok", or "reading Instagram". That's what 'gaming' sounds like: your hobby is media consumption.

There's no age where you aren't allowed to consume media; but it's worrying if that consumption is your identity, if consumption makes up your routine.

So it's not actually about age - it's about maturity and goal-setting.

When we're younger, most of us live moment-by-moment. Media consumption offers no future, but it has a pleasurable present.

But as people age, people develop goals and interests that require more investment and focus, and they're looking for people that are doing the same. A cutthroat economy demands people develop goals for financial stability, even if they still otherwise like games.

As we age, we stop looking for somebody to hang out with, but to build a life with.

So once the people you're talking to have interests for the future, "I enjoy my present doing my own thing" doesn't offer them anything. If they don't play games, they don't even know what games are capable of. Maybe one day they'd enjoy playing Ultimate Chicken Horse with you.

But right now, they just see the recognisable titles that want to monopolise children's time, and assume you're doing that. They picture you spending 20+ hours a week playing Fortnite. And there is an age cut-off where it's no longer socially-acceptable to be a child.

It's not that video games are bad, but they're a non-answer. They want to know what you do that's good, and a non-answer implies you don't have a good answer at all, and that makes video games 'bad'.

I have wildly diverse hobbies, so I usually manage to mention something that people around me find weird. Gaming is one of them, and since I am not just your age but also female, I have received tons of strange comments over the years. At least my being somewhat fluid in English isn't making me stand out anymore!

I think computer-related activities are seen different by our age group since we didn't exactly grow up with it, or at least most of us didn't. I know I was already a teenager when my parents bought us kids a computer, and that one needed inputs in BASIC and was textbased only. And while several of my classmates had similar experiences plus parents who insisted this was useful to know for our futures (and boy, where they right!), most of us still preferred to spent our time elsewhere. I see the difference in my kids, who grew up with not only computers and related technology, but also the internet. My son occasionally played board games via an internet platform by the time he was five (under supervision, of course), and as such, video games are much more part of daily life for that generation.

In my eyes, the decades-long discussion on when to give your child his/her first mobile phone has similar roots: We were used to a slower pace of life, that as a child you carry a few coins so that you can call your parents from a pay phone in an emergency, and otherwise you had to be at home at a specified time. Play dates with school mates were discussed in person at school, and so forth. Our children are dealing with far faster pace, discussion with class mates only occasionally take place eye-to-eye, and their schedules have become much more complex and fluid. Also, they grow up knowing everybody and anybody carries a phone in their pocket, and of course they want the same. Technology is integrated into their lifes from the start, and that means gaming is far more acceptable as a pastime.

I am over 60 and play Minecraft regularly.