Senior gamers: Preferences, motivations and needs

Digital games hold the potential to enhance seniors’ leisure time and social connectedness, and provide a mental and even physical workout. However, most digital games that are currently on the market are targeted at the younger audience and contain content that generally does not resonate well with seniors. Senior gamers do exist, yet little is known about them. It is unclear what motivates them to engage in digital gaming, what type of games they play, what problems they face with game interfaces, and what their perceptions and attitudes are towards digital gaming. By gathering an in-depth understanding about senior gamers, future digital games could be designed in such a way that they are usable, engaging and fun to the senior population. By means of two focus groups and four contextual inquiries, rich, qualitative insight was gained about senior gamers. Results indicate that digital game play offers many benefits to seniors, and in the paper a number of potential strategies are discussed to increase the positive return from digital game play and to appeal a wider senior audience.