From Guns and Violence to Playful Adventures: The Growing Number of Gamers and Age Groups

During the 1980's when the Atari 2600 was available, many of the games produced for it were for a small group of dedicated gamers, who were typically in their 20's to 30's and had some pocket change to spend on a game or two. The content of these games could range anywhere from simple adventures to more adult games, such as the controversial Custer's Revenge (1982), or Pac Man (1982). Content on the Atari 2600 was unrestricted, as anyone would be able to make a game for the console and attempt to sell it to the small audience at the time.

It was in 1985 that Nintendo released the NES, creating a new surge of games that could be bother watched or played with one's family. The Legend of Zelda (1986) and Mario Bros. (1983) were such  family-friendly games, as they were relatively nonviolent, and would allow one's children to watch or play the game with their parents. This introduced games to a younger generation, children, and the market soon adapted to this.

One of the more recognizable handheld consoles, the Gameboy Color, was released in 1998, with one of its most popular titles being the Pokemon series, with Pokemon Yellow being released the year after. From the Gameboy Color, children and young adults had a means of portable game entertainment, and became fascinated with the system. Nintendo would release Gameboy Advance, SP, DS, and 3DS in the following years, continuing the portable system's success. With the wide availability and portability these new games had obtained, more and more people wanted to play them.

On the other side of the child-friendly games Nintendo had produced, there was also an expanding amount of games designed for young adults as well. In 2007, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was produced for the Xbox 360 console (2005), and featured violent scenes of killing terrorists, and despite being rated as mature by the ESRB, was undoubtedly played by young children as well. Those children who had grown up playing video games, as they aged, craved for more violence, and the industry responded. In 2008, one such violent game, Grand Theft Auto IV, received widespread attention as being too overly violent and having too many sexual influences, even for an 'M' rated game. Still, GTA IV sold millions of copies, and the trend for more violent games continued.

At present there are a wide variety of both violent and nonviolent games, meant for age groups of all kinds. Whether one is an infant or an adult, there are games with a market for that age group.Compared to the small market of gamers in the 1980's, the gaming playerbase has continually expanded [1], growing wider and wider over the course of the past 30 years. It is likely that this will continue to trend as newer games are released unto the market.

Source:
[1]Parks Associates. (2011, November 10). "Number of gamers double in three years thanks to casual gaming on tablets and smartphones." Retireved from http://www.parksassociates.com/blog/article/parks-pr2011-gamingmc