Aging and videogames: when do you begin to suck?

[Falconeer]

I am 41 and it is obvious that I am worse at videogames than I've ever been. Obviously we are talking about action games, which in my case include anything that ranges from FPSs and RTSs, to brawlers, platformers, racing games, so pretty much any game that requires FAST reaction times and PRECISE movements especially in a multiplayer environment. Anyway, I remember being decent at FPS, and I know that I could aim at anything in a matter of milliseconds with a micro movemement of the wrist. I was never GOOD. But now... now I am terrible. I am always last or very close to last in every multiplayer action game I try. In Smite and MechWarrior I managed to fit somewhere in the absolute average, but considering how much I've played that's an awful result. And while an argument can be made about the newer generations being just better at it, I know for a fact I am simply not as quick and precise as I was.

I don't want to go into too many details, but it is obvious that now my reaction time is a few milliseconds slower than it was, and my movements are less accurate, meaning whatever I aim at requires another slight movement to correct the first one. In the meantime, I'm dead. I would go as far as saying that only five years ago (around 35) I wasn't this bad. I'd give examples, but they don't matter.

This makes me think and wonder. Of course we age, and of course our performances slowly degrade in pretty much every field. But it is only recently, with Smite, then a brief return to Counterstrike, and now Star Wars Battlefront, that I had to acknowledge that I am completely losing it. It's a strange feeling, to see how subtle is the rotting of your senses, your eye-hand coordination, your skills as a gamer. I've played football my entire life and I still do, but somehow that physical drop was expected so it didn't shock me the same way. Instead, we could be the first generation that is experiencing this with something so uniquely "barely physical" and "barely mental" as videogames. I wonder if there already are studies on the topic.

When's the first time you realized your videogames body and brain weren't the same they used to be? Or is it just me?
And, I mean, scientifically, what is it exactly?

[Kail]

Scientifically, I've seen studies that point to reflex time degrading starting at age 25 or so.

In gaming, I'm not sure that matters as much as people think, though.  There are certain challenges that are pure reflex, but a lot of it is planning and anticipation.  Depending on the game you can still do pretty well in a lot of situations or roles.  Playing Overwatch last week, for example, I couldn't snipe for shit, but there are lots of characters that are more about positioning or skill use than pure aiming and I think those are fairly friendly to older players.  Ambush characters I find are a lot easier to play as I get older.

Quote from Daigo (pro Street Fighter player) :
http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2014/aug/09/daigo-thinks-age-actually-advantage-competitive-fighting-games-opposed-other-games-shares-his-secret-maintaining-his-condition/

---Do you think that age is an impediment to a professional fighting game player's career?

MCZ|Daigo: To give an example, if suppose I was not a professional fighting game player, but a pro gamer in another type of game, such as... FPS, RTS, or even Smash Bros. If I were to compete against a younger player in those games, then I get the feeling that the younger player would come up on top.

However, with fighting games, as you grow older you're accumulating a bunch of experience and knowledge, and that can actually serve as a great advantage towards winning over, for instance, my younger self.

[Merusk]

I realized it 3-4 years ago. Not that I was any great shakes at FPS games, but I finally reached the point that I simply couldn't get kills. My finger manipulation has always been slower due to injuries and abuse but it's finally gotten to the point that if I'm not shooting before that guy comes around the corner I'm dead.

It's why I go for games like WoT or "Tab-Target" games like WoW over Planetside, Overwatch or LOL. (Or why I only played support classes in the latter 3) I know I'll never align a shot and press buttons fast enough. The mandatory cooldowns or nature of gameplay put me on a more even playing field than pure twitch/ DPS stuff.

It's certainly not a new problem, just one that we're experiencing on a new platform of entertainment. Age happens.

[MahrinSkel]

I have definitely lost a step, in terms of reaction times and physical precision. There are a million little ways it hampers me, the shot that isn't as precise, the failure to match up anticipation of an opponent with the exploitation of it, more cognitive overhead and less reflexive action in response to subconscious awareness in complex situations.

I know more tricks, but I am less able to pull them off successfully. Not enough to lose the enjoyability of the experience, but enough to keep me from competing in the top tier.

--Dave

Edit:To answer the question posed in the title, it was probably around 37 that I first started to notice it, only the last couple of years (42-43) that it became undeniable.

[Morat20]

Time devoted to it is also a factor. Honestly, I'm lucky to get in 5 to 10 hours a week "playing games" and that's everything, combined. My kid, at 19, will spend days in the summer where he'll play 10 hours at a stretch, at a single game.

I'm definitely slower, but mostly...I barely play enough to remember the key layouts. It's a rare game that I play steadily enough to make them instinctive (I think the last was ME3 Multiplayer, and I got no further than Gold games and I was decidedly average).

[HaemishM]

I don't know about age, but there was a RAMPANT cheating/hack problem with the Star Wars Batttlefront beta so I wouldn't put it all on you, Falc.

[Threash]

I've lost the obsessiveness that made me good at games, not a real physical loss but a lack of drive to excel that i used to have.

[Sky]

I'm with Threash, I began sucking at FPS when I stopped giving a shit.

[Spiff]

I'd say that's what happened to me as well, just caring less, but then I have to wonder if that's just how I'm rationalizing it.
Maybe I started caring less when I noticed I couldn't compete with the top 10% anymore anyway.
I certainly rage a lot less than I used to, so it's not all bad.

[apocrypha]

Average reaction times do undeniably decrease with age, but there's enormous variation. If it's something that really matters to you then your best bet is to keep exercising your reactions.

Like Sky and Threash I stopped being interested in twitch/shooter games, and that's when my reactions noticeably slowed. I few years ago a group of friends and I fired up UT and had a blast for a few days. I thrashed them, despite being in my early 40s and 5-15 years older than most of the rest of them. At the time I was still playing a lot of things like WoT, Warframe, etc, and doing a lot of photography that required precise shutter release control.

Over the last couple of years I've played mostly Minecraft and what little photography I've done has been static, product photography. Picked up CODBLOPS3 a few weeks ago and sucked hard at it. Even in the single-player campaign I ended up turning the difficulty way down low because I simply wasn't reacting fast enough.

Use it or lose it.

[Setanta]

I stopped being good at twitch FPS games when Tribes: Vengeance came out because after Tribes 1 and 2, nothing did it for me. T:V just put the nail in the coffin and Ascend just pissed on my grave.

At 47 I tend to enjoy the more sedate team games such as World of Warships and (not so sedate) Armored Warfare (suck it WoT) and EvE now and then.

Heroes of the Storm has replaced Smite and LoL.

Other than that it's SP games for me where I can (hopefully) control the pace but I've been dabbling with paladins because I like being mocked :D

[Lucas]

37 here.

I never really played competitive multiplayer FPS games, so I really wouldn't know, nor I've been in some "serious" MMO group, lately. Honestly, when playing single-player FPS, I still have to notice a "real" degradation when it comes to my reflexes (#denial).

My dad, at 58, is still a regular videogamer, but mainly CRPGs and 4X turn-based strategy, with one big exception: action RPGs, especially Diablo II and Path of Exile. In that regard, especially since he only plays hardcore, he definitely noticed a degradation compared to how he rolled through enemies 10-12 years ago, that goes along side the incessant cursing when one of his HC characters inevitably dies a horrible and sudden death 

[Amarr HM]

I'm in the same boat, definitely seeing a decline. I used to be a purple 2800 wn8 type player in Wot in my mid thirties now that I'm hitting 40 I was lucky to average out at 1800. Not only are the reflexes reduced so is there this thing I like to call "level of care". I think my level of care has dropped about 25%

[Shannow]

Physical degradation plays a part but time invested I think is the larger determining factor (and considering how many games you post on Falc how do you focus?.:D). At 40 maybe you're not going to be better than the top 10% of players of a game, but that still leaves 90% to beat on. Then it becomes a matter of time spent in game. I've also noticed a direct correlation between my ability at CS and time spent each night (and it has to be every night , skip one and I start to fall off). I play one to two comp matches in CS:GO each night and can hold my own.

[Strazos]

I think patience has a lot to do with it, as well as practice. I don't know if my actual reflexes have degraded at 32, but the execution in some things sure has.

For instance, ten years ago I was playing tons of UT, TF2, and the like. I could generally hold my own, and routinely stomped pubs in public games. But now, I don't think I could do that to the same degree - mostly because I don't play those types of games much anymore, and I also simply care less. I'm much less patient when gaming, much less inclined to play passively and let opponents commit mistakes in front of me. Now I tend to play much more aggressively online, with just a touch of YOLOing thrown in.

Console shooters, on the other hand, have never been my strong suit - I've always been average at best. This really shows whenever I am forced to PvP in Destiny. 

[Xanthippe]

Some people would say that I always sucked at playing video games, but I started to notice about 43ish? - being a decade and a half past that now, I notice enough such that my game playing tastes are much different than they were. I don't really play FPS games much even solo, with rare exceptions. My game choices now tend toward games that don't involve time limits. I think tab-targeting is wonderful.

[lamaros]

1. Most good FPS players are arm and wrist players, not just wrist. If you're playing wrist only you're likely holding yourself back. You sensitivity is likely way way too high. The highest I've seen in a pro player is still under 4.0 on 400DPI, and many are much lower.

2. Counter Strike in particular is a game with a very high skill ceiling, and there are a lot of players who put a lot of time in. Playing well is not just a function of reflexes, but map knowledge, weapon knowledge, game knowledge, communication, and so on and so forth. Anyone just jumping in every now and then is going to be shit even if they have great reflexes. It will generally take you at least are year or more of consistent play to find your level, and it's even more likely that you'll keep getting better over time, even as you get older.

[Surlyboi]

I was always passable at PC FPSes, with the exception of sniping. Give me the time and I'll headshot anything and everything. The advent of console FPSes and the aim assist in them probably prolonged my competitiveness, but I found I kinda sucked in the CoDs and the high-twitch environments of the Xbox ADD crowd. I switched to Destiny on the PS4 and found I'm suddenly super competitive again, even at 44. I guess it depends on the game and the system.

[Trippy]

I was already old and slow when I was playing Quake(World) and Counter-Strike competitively -- there was no way I could keep up with the kids in college back then -- so my decline hasn't been precipitous. I suppose it was during the era of Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 4 and TF 2, a decade after that period, when I realized there was no way I was going to be able to get back to that earlier skill level. I still play shooters and have fun with them, though.

[Ginaz]

I just re-installed Medal of Honor:Airborne, which came out in 2007.  I remember completing it back then with very few problems.  Flash forward to tonight and I died at least half a dozen times before the first mission was over.  I don't know if its age or what but I seem to be God awful at fps these days.

[Samprimary]

I recovered a good 90% of my twitch skills for FPS in one weekend of overwatch. The remaining ten percent or so does not seem like it would come back even with lots of practice.  The cognitive edge is a bit dulled out. It feels like I have less time dilation from concentration in fast moments. eSports types seem to peak at the very early 20's, and I feel that.

[MahrinSkel]

I remember when it felt like I could 'walk between the raindrops', literally timing the bullets from the other guy's gun so that I would whiz through his crosshairs untouched and do something insulting (stab him in the face, plant a mine under his feet, let off a shotgun blast in his crotch, whatever would be most infuriating for him to see in the killcam). I just don't have that kind of turbo mode any more.

--Dave

[Fordel]

It ain't your old man bodies, it's your old man responsibilities. Your going form hundreds of hours of regular playing to like dozens at best. You got bills to pay and maybe kids of your own, where when you were young you could spend all your considerable free time just playing/thinking/dreaming about your next match.



Like E-Sports people peak around their early 20's because after that point you have to 'get real' with your life, unless you are one of the handful of players that are WILDLY successful and can support themselves entirely on their playing. Now that 'real' money is starting to trickle into the scene, your going to see more and more 'old timers' hanging around.

[Mithas]

I agree. I've found that I just don't have patience anymore. I don't want to bang my head against a game and lose over and over again. That ain't fun. So I stick to games I know well or are a little slower paced so the learning curve is easier to tackle.

I've gone back to TF2 a few times recently. After a few matches some of the rust comes off and I'm at least respectable.

[Yegolev]

I was never great at video games.

I suppose, however, that for me it was Rainbow 6 Vegas when three of us elders took one side and one guy's twelve-year-old son took the other.  It was a massacre.  Must be what it's like to be a nameless enemy in any game ever.

[Rasix]

My job used to be a lot easier, and I used to care a lot less.  I also had one less child.  I get 10-12 hours a week as opposed the second full time job worth I used to get in.  

I do think my skills have degraded but that could also be attributed to playing a narrower focus of games.  I don't play a lot of shooters.  RTS stress me out too much.  MOBAs take too much time for me to get good at, but I think my effective APM would be sufficient. I'd play LoL, DOTA2 or HotS if I could get near enough time to actually improve at them.  

I do notice a decrease in skill, but it's just hard for me to pin it on anything when I just can't play enough to improve at any game.  I have a baseline of better than average and it just never gets much better than that.  (Ard can attest).  I was only ever "competitive level" at a handful of games (UO, Quake 2, Tribes), and that's when I was in college and playing all of the time I should have been studying or partying.  I figure I need 2-3 hours a night at a single game to get to the point where I'd see actual improvement and judge where my gaming skills actually are.  

Of course, I just really don't care enough to get good.  I have more than enough games to keep me suitably entertained and that's all I really want.  I don't care much if I'm better than anyone as long as I'm not a detriment to my teammates (sorry for the "Tonkoring" fellas).

[Ard]

(sorry for the "Tonkoring" fellas).

You are not.  

I don't feel like I've really gotten any worse as time goes by and I'm nearly 40, but I still have time to play games.  Get back to me in a year after my kid is born here in a month and we'll see.

[Shannow]

The secret is , you can get plenty of gaming time with a newborn. I took up playing original CS with my son. How? Very easy...get home from work , have dinner and tell my wife 'hun you go to bed, I'll take him till his midnight feed'. Place him in bassinet , next to foot (so can rock with said foot when needed), play games to your hearts content. Done!

[shiznitz]

This is a great topic for us old dudes. I remember in EQ one of our guild members was a good 10-15 years older than the rest of us (and we were in our 20s). When adds showed up or something started to go to shit, he was always the last/slowest person to react in game. His "lack of attention" was sometimes - not often - the cause of our TPW and I would grind my teeth and curse him. Now I am experiencing what he must have been going through 15 years ago. Luckily for others I am not causong TPWs (since I don;t play those games any more) but when I am MMOing with a tribe of late teens/20s and it is up to me to save everyone's ass, I fail 4 times out of 5. If my PS2 K/D is 1.2 for the night, I am ecstatic.

[Megrim]

I am 41 and it is obvious that I am worse at videogames than I've ever been. Obviously we are talking about action games, which in my case include anything that ranges from FPSs and RTSs, to brawlers, platformers, racing games, so pretty much any game that requires FAST reaction times and PRECISE movements especially in a multiplayer environment. Anyway, I remember being decent at FPS, and I know that I could aim at anything in a matter of milliseconds with a micro movemement of the wrist. I was never GOOD. But now... now I am terrible. I am always last or very close to last in every multiplayer action game I try. In Smite and MechWarrior I managed to fit somewhere in the absolute average, but considering how much I've played that's an awful result. And while an argument can be made about the newer generations being just better at it, I know for a fact I am simply not as quick and precise as I was.

I don't want to go into too many details, but it is obvious that now my reaction time is a few milliseconds slower than it was, and my movements are less accurate, meaning whatever I aim at requires another slight movement to correct the first one. In the meantime, I'm dead. I would go as far as saying that only five years ago (around 35) I wasn't this bad. I'd give examples, but they don't matter.

This makes me think and wonder. Of course we age, and of course our performances slowly degrade in pretty much every field. But it is only recently, with Smite, then a brief return to Counterstrike, and now Star Wars Battlefront, that I had to acknowledge that I am completely losing it. It's a strange feeling, to see how subtle is the rotting of your senses, your eye-hand coordination, your skills as a gamer. I've played football my entire life and I still do, but somehow that physical drop was expected so it didn't shock me the same way. Instead, we could be the first generation that is experiencing this with something so uniquely "barely physical" and "barely mental" as videogames. I wonder if there already are studies on the topic.

When's the first time you realized your videogames body and brain weren't the same they used to be? Or is it just me?
And, I mean, scientifically, what is it exactly?

It's mostly practice and familiarity. Or, as someone else put it "do piano players suddenly stop being able to play well as they get older?". If you are using FPS as a measuring stick, you have to keep in mind two hidden variables: map knowledge; knowledge of game mechanics. When I started playing BF3 and most recently Dirty Bomb, I died a lot, had a negative kdr, contributed very little to the team, and all that. My reaction time has remained just about dead average for a human since I was 15 or so, and my ability to fight reflexively is framed by that. However, once I figured out the maps, understood the timing, learned how the weapons worked - my ability to consistently top an average pub scoreboard has gone and stayed up.

Now, from what I've read on the subject as it relates to sport (because I play sport competitively), the neuromuscular structure does start to decay later in life (around 50 iirc), but this is regulated by training, health and biology. The rate is not a consistent thing, and varies from person to person. This ought to extend to video games as well, since you are reacting to visual stimuli.

Also, do keep in mind that most people will say "I'm pretty decent at X" - when in reality, the majority are actually crap.  

In fact, here is a related study that shows visual reaction speed as being trainable over time.

[ajax34i]

I've always sucked at FPS, so I guess the answer is "from day 1" for me.

If I wanted to "check" I'd have to go into MMO raid healing, since that's pretty much the only gaming activity that I've done that had any sort of meters applied to it.

But nah.  No time for that stuff, and no fun MMO's, really.  And no fun friends, either.

[Kail]

Also, do keep in mind that most people will say "I'm pretty decent at X" - when in reality, the majority are actually crap.  

Worse, most people will THINK "I'm pretty decent at X" and remember that opinion more than the facts.  The more distant you get, the easier it is for confirmation bias to set in, the more vague and hard to recall the memories get.  Hard evidence of how good you were at Cyber Sled in the nineties is difficult to come by, if you even still talk with the people you gamed with a a kid they probably don't have particularly clear memories of it either.  It's easier to remember "I'm pretty good at Time Killers" than to actually remember much of what actually happened for most of your games.

I remember, when we started seeing digital rereleases of old school content, being amazed at how shitty I was.  I could beat Sonic no problem when I was a kid, now here I am dying all the time!  But when I tried to figure out what I was doing wrong, I realized that I probably was never as good as I remembered.  I could BEAT the game, sure, but I still grabbed 1-ups, so I apparently wasn't doing no damage speedruns or anything.  I had my little brother playing as Tails, I had strategy guides and maps all over the place.  But in my head, I remembered knowing every map top to bottom, blowing through the entire game with all the emeralds and no mistakes.

[Gimfain]

Anyone can become good at gaming, its all about patience and become aware of what happens. While reflexes certainly help playing as an enthusiast rely far more on having situational awareness and that's something you can learn. Action and fighting games is about learning patterns and while PvP means human players, human players has a tendency to become predictable.

In my 20's I could pick things up fairly easy, today I force myself to learn to be good. While it was brutal coming back to action games after a long hiatus due to mmorpg's, and even rougher because I had to learn how to use a gamepad after being a keyboard player for my whole life its something that I have overcome.  I find myself a better gamer at 40 than I was at 20, what I lack in reflexes I take back with determination.

[Evildrider]

My response time has definitely slowed a bit.  I used to compete in Unreal Tournament and Quake back in the day, then I got into MMO's. I am about to turn 42 in a couple months but I can definitely tell since I turned 40 that my shit was going downhill.    I still am pretty good at stuff like MWO or MMO PvP matches, but last time I tried to play some FPS stuff like CoD or Battlefield I was definitely getting my ass kicked.         

[Fabricated]

I used to play casual CS on a couple Cal-I clan servers who had members I was friends with and would participate in friendly scrims with them and other Cal-I level players. I wasn't up to their level then but I could hang, and now? Yeah no fucking way.

I can still chew people up in non-quake engine deathmatch titles however.