Video games are just for kids and that’s as true now as it’s ever been

Two children playing console video games on a couch — The target audience for video games? (Getty Images)

A reader argues that as far as publishers are concerned video games are primarily only for teens and children, especially in recent years.

When I was growing up video games were viewed as a childish and immature concept. Something that was probably only going to be a short-lived fad and was enjoyed only by antisocial teenage boys in darkened bedrooms. That cliché has taken a long time to go away but I would say that, ever since parents who grew up with games started having kids of their own, it’s no longer the way most people think of gaming. Instead, the only ones that keep up the stereotype are video game publishers.

Back in the 90s, the only marketing you’d see for video games would be in comic books or early Saturday morning on TV, during children’s programmes. That alone tells you all you need to know about who publishers thought their primary audience was.

This changed a little with the launch of the original PlayStation but all it did was raise the age range by around five years to encompass older teenage boys. Forward on to the current day and things haven’t really changed at all. There are lots of games aimed at difference audiences, but no matter what it is the marketing still emphasises violence and anger to the exclusion of anything else.

You can see this phenomenon in many video game trailers, even for video games that have good stories and thoughtful characters. No matter what the majority of the game is like, the trailer will always focus purely on violence and snarling characters talking about vengeance and rage. Even if it means misrepresenting the game, it’s whatever the publisher feels will appeal to angsty teenagers that gets promoted.

Whether this will ever stop is hard to say but what caught my attention this week was the story about how the majority of people prefer single-player games to multiplayer, even though you’d never guess that from the way publishers carry on. The figure of 53% was an average though, with older players having virtually no interest in multiplayer and younger players enjoying most types of game almost equally, with a slight preference for PvP.

So, at first you might ask why have so many publishers stopped making single-player games, or at least slowed down, when they’re more popular? The first, and obvious question is because multiplayer makes more money. A single-player game is one and done and most have little or no microtransactions – maybe a bit of DLC and that’s usually it.

But multiplayer games can have tons of microtransactions and companies can keep adding more as long as people keep playing them, which for a live service game can potentially be forever. So that’s why they do it, but if older gamers don’t play them the problem this creates is that games are increasingly being aimed more at children than at any point since the mid-90s.

Most adults are not going to waste hundreds on microtransactions and battle passes and all the other nonsense. But kids will. They’ll ask for in-store credit for birthdays and Christmas and they’ll ‘accidentally’ use parents’ credit cards if there’s no other way.

Video games as a whole can be appreciated by people of any age, and many games are aimed solely at adults, in terms of the story or the nature of the gameplay. But the big games, the ones that make all the money and drive the industry, they’re aimed at kids – even the ones with a mature rating. Just try turning on chat for Call Of Duty or GTA Online and you’ll soon realise the average age of their players is well below what it’s supposed to be.

There’s been some signs in the last month or so, that the likes of Sony and Ubisoft have begun to realise their mistakes with live service games, but we’ll have to see whether that’s really true. For now, it’s clear that publishers consider games to be a product for children and while they’ll happily take anyone’s money it’s kids they make the most from.

Combine this with the rising cost of making video games and gaming is in great danger of going backwards in terms of the range of games that are made, the people that play them, and how they’re perceived by the wider world. Games started off being only aimed at kids and at the moment it’s seeming like not much has changed since then.

By reader Aston Marley