Keywords

1 Introduction

Video games left behind the status of a niche medium that only attracts a small segment of society long ago. The great diversity of platforms, genres, and modes of playing that has evolved over the past decades has enlarged the games’ audience dramatically [1]. Children and adolescents, the traditionally most loyal gamers, are now being accompanied by large segments of adult and ‘silver gamers’ [2, 3]. Similar to the diversification of age groups among which gaming has become increasingly popular, market data also suggests that gender discrepancies in the affinity towards digital games are vanishing or, at least, declining (cf. for instance [4]). Overall, playing video games is a popular leisure time activity and an integral element of the everyday media menu across virtually all segments of Western (and Asian) societies.

In order to explain the remarkable popularity of video games across such diverse audience segments, games researchers have proposed a variety of systematics to organize the many possible (or demonstrated) motivational attractors of video games and the reasons of pleasant gaming experiences [5,6,7]. Most of these concepts of game appeal claim psychological universality in the sense that the assumed motivational dynamics underlying game use apply – or can apply – to all gamers. However, scholars also demonstrated that the importance of these motivational factors differ among individuals. For example, motivational differences have been identified between male and female gamers, e.g., [8, 9]. Overall, however, past research on video game motivation has put much more emphasis on the relevance of game elements and gamer-game interactions than on person factors, that is, individual characteristics that gamers bring to the playing process. With the rise of new gamer types, silver gamers in particular [2], the question of individual differences in gaming motivation has acquired greater importance to research on games entertainment and popularity, e.g., [10,11,12,13,14].

While there are explorations on preferences of specific gamer segments, little is known about what different age groups of gamers find appealing in a given game. Past research suggests that the quality of entertainment experiences generated by playing the same game differs among player groups, such as age cohorts [15]. Hence, the question remains, whether older players display systematically different fun experiences and gaming motivations. Is there a ‘mature’ kind of video game enjoyment that is less appealing or even inaccessible to younger people who are going through earlier developmental stages and possess less life experience than silver gamers?

The present research aims at strengthening the individual difference perspective on game entertainment by exploring possible particularities in silver gamers’ motivations to play video games. For this purpose, we review related evidence on aging and age effects in consumption of media entertainment and identify dimensions of fun that should theoretically differentiate the motivational profiles of silver gamers from younger player segments. Moreover, we discuss potential interplays between these age effects and gender differences in gaming motivations. A large-scale online survey among German casual gamers is then reported that tests our hypotheses (see Sects. 2.2 and 2.3) and answers our research question (see Sect. 2.4) empirically.

2 Theoretical Approaches to Aging and Entertainment Motivations

2.1 Motivations to Play Video Games

As video games grew more and more popular in the past decades, a large body of research investigated the motivational processes underlying individual decisions for playing, replaying, and continuing to play games. Multiple conceptualizations of players’ motivations have been proposed. For example, based on self-determination theory, Ryan, Rigby, and Przybylski [5] found that video games satisfy needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness [16]. Yee [6] selected a different approach and construed a large set of possible gaming motivations mostly from the features of contemporary online games, such as MMOs. He organized the factorial structure of motives in three higher-order dimensions: achievement (e.g., mastering challenges), social (e.g., the joys of companionship in virtual adventures), and immersion (e.g., the suspense of game narrative). Sherry and colleagues [7], in turn, identified six different motives using qualitative focus group interviews: arousal, challenge, competition, diversion, fantasy, and social interaction. Again a different approach was proposed by Klimmt [17], who linked game features to psychological assumptions and suggested three experiential processes that drive video game entertainment: effectance (the sense of causing an impact on the game), suspense and relief (similar to affective responses to linear drama; cf. [18]), and identification with game characters or roles [19]. Still other explanations of video game motivation have been proposed, and this short overview already shows that it is hardly possible to unify all suggestions into one comprehensive model [20]. Hence, in the present paper, we selectively focus on those motivations for which age differences could be predicted by theoretical concepts of emotional development and age identity.

2.2 Emotional Development and Entertainment Gratifications

Past research in communication has identified multiple consequences of human development, including adult development and aging, for media consumption [21]. Of particular relevance in the present context of silver gamers are the dynamics of entertainment use during adult development. Descriptive market research has consistently shown cohort differences in consumption of television entertainment, for instance [21]. Theoretical approaches apply concepts from developmental psychology and acknowledge changes in affective needs and emotional self-regulation as drivers behind the entertainment preferences that shift over the life course. Specifically, Bartsch [22] follows previous studies in building on socio-emotional selectivity theory [23] that explains changes in people’s social goal orientations as effect of changing perceptions of one’s remaining lifetime. When future time is perceived to be limited (which is often the case with older individuals [23, 24]), people prioritize emotional goals, whereas goals of knowledge acquisition are valued to a greater extent as long as time is perceived as unlimited (i.e., the typical perception of younger individuals [23, 24]). As a consequence, older people prefer states of emotional positivity and balance (e.g., by avoiding rather than engaging in conflict), whereas younger people display greater readiness to go through aversive experiences, which is adaptive when coping skills can be developed from such experiences.

An application of this perspective of socio-emotional selectivity theory [23] to video game motivations suggests that silver gamers are less likely than younger players to seek playing experiences that may result in aversive affects. This can be related to challenging situations featured in many video games (e.g., time pressure to deliver performance). Mastering challenges is a strong driver of enjoyment [25] and, thus, an important motive of video game use [6, 7, 17]. However, the risk of failure may result in suspense and stress during playing [17] and a negative outcome of a challenge is likely to result in aversive emotional experiences such as frustration [25]. Although past studies found, that being challenged is an important motivational factor for playing games for elderly players [11,12,13], it could be expected that younger cohorts accept the potential aversive elements of challenges to a larger extent. Hence, elderly gamers should evaluate facing challenges as a less important reason to use video games than younger players.

In contrast, silver gamers should value relaxing experiences that provide recovery from aversive conditions more than younger cohorts (e.g., contemplative experiences that are free of time pressure, do not involve immediate risks of failure or loss of achieved progress, and enable mild cognitive stimulation). Hence, the escapist function of games – experiencing the pleasure of temporarily evading real-life problems and sorrows [6, 7, 17] – should be a more important attractor for elderly players. Similarly, to experience relaxation while playing games [6] should attract silver gamers more than younger cohorts. In line with these hypotheses, first exploratory studies found that relaxation and escapism from daily sorrows and duties are important reasons why elderly players use games [10, 12].

  • H1. Silver gamers find challenge a less important motivation to play video games than younger players.

  • H2. Silver gamers report escapism to be a more important motivation to play video games than younger players.

  • H3. Silver gamers find relaxation a more important motivation to play video games than younger players.

Socio-emotional selectivity theory also suggests that older adults are more cautious with their personal relationships in the sense of maintaining positive interpersonal contacts, whereas younger people are relatively more willing to put relationships at risk for other purposes [23]. Bartsch [22] concludes that older people prefer media entertainment that offers positive, non-aversive affective experiences and enables pleasant shared experiences with relevant others. In contrast, younger people would be more likely to also accept challenging, emotionally ambiguous, even aversive entertainment fare that does not necessarily need to contribute to positive peer relations [26, 27].

This element from developmental theory relates to competition motivations in video game use. Many games contain elements of fierce competition, which is often organized as player versus player contests [25, 28]. Older adults should find competitive gaming experiences less enjoyable, as they would threaten their positive interpersonal relationships with co-players or increase aversive elements of stress during game play. Hence, competition should be a less important motivational factor for video game play for elderly users.

  • H4. Silver gamers find competition a less important motivation to play video games than younger players.

By the same token, silver gamers should seek playing experiences that involve positive interplayer relations, such as receiving from and giving support to co-players or achieving a sense of community through joint play [6]. In line with these assumptions, Osmanovic and Pecchino [10] found in an exploratory study that older gamers prefer social collaboration in video games to social competition. Younger players, in contrast, should be less inclined to preserve positive social experiences (see above).

  • H5. Silver gamers find positive friendship experiences a more important motivation to play video games than younger players.

2.3 Age Identity and the Place of Entertainment in Life

An alternative theoretical perspective on explaining age differences in entertainment preference looks at media users’ self-concept. Harwood [29] argues that media audiences seek for messages that reaffirm their age identity, which means that preferred media content is intended to demonstrate the “prevalence and social significance of their age group”. Such experiences of significance support “a positive age identity” [30]. For the case of TV viewing, these considerations have been applied to explain audiences’ preference of media characters of similar age; however, the logics of age identity reaffirmation can also be expected to apply to entire media genres or even media types such as video games.

This might imply that players are likely to enjoy gaming experiences that ‘fit to’ or reaffirm their age identity. While younger players would perceive intense gaming ‘action’ as well-compatible to their age identity (such as competition, assertiveness, and conflict in games [31]; see the reasoning behind H4 above), older players will rather strive for a gaming experience that is connected to patience, wisdom, and balance – attributes that match well with their self-concept of being experienced and mature. While specific genres fit better to the former or latter intention of playing games (e.g., fast shooter games for the young, puzzle games for older adults [32]), some games with a universally broad appeal may offer incentives for affirming the age identity of different cohorts or generations. In online casual games, for example, patience-focused game play such as collecting items or improving one’s base (completism) should, from an age identity perspective, be a more important attractor for older players than for younger gamers.

  • H6. Silver gamers find collecting/completism a more important motivation to play video games than younger players.

2.4 Interplay of Age and Gender Differences?

Interestingly, the proportion of females attracted to games has been rising in recent years – especially in older cohorts [4, 33]. Past research has identified substantial gender differences in gaming motivations. Females were found on average to prefer socializing over competition in video games, and were much less attracted by violent content and genres, e.g., [8, 9]. Therefore, explorations of the gaming motivations of silver gamers should also take up the gender perspective and investigate possible interactions between the age effects predicted beforehand and gender dynamics on players’ motivations.

So far, little is known about possible interplays of age and gender on players’ motivations. It could be assumed that gender patterns of video game motivations are rather stable and do not differ among age groups. Hence, silver gamers may mirror gender differences known from younger cohorts (e.g., females’ dislike of competition). However, one could also expect age-gender dynamics. For instance, the combined effects of gender and age identity could render competitive game play particularly repelling for older female players or bring unknown patterns of gratifications sought to the gaming experience. As this does not allow for a clear prediction of the interplay of age and gender on gamers’ motivations we decided to explore the gender perspective based on an open research question.

  • RQ1. How does the interplay between age and gender influence players’ video gaming motivations?

3 Method

During one week in the year 2011, we conducted a multilingual online survey with users of the international casual game “Farmerama”©. To reach out to the game’s player base, we cooperated with BigPoint, the German production company of the game. Gamers were invited to the survey by a pop up window that appeared at the end of a game session. Participants were offered raffle tickets to win one out of five “Farmerama” donkey barns (i.e., improvements of their virtual in-game farm). Altogether, 49,973 gamers completed the full survey. However, in the analysis reported here, we focused on participants of the largest nationality group in the data, German users, in order to prevent a potential bias resulting from cross-cultural assessment [34]. Moreover, several cases had to be omitted from further analysis due to unrealistic completion time, implausible response patterns and high numbers of missing values. In addition, few participants reported their age above 70 years. These cases were also excluded from analysis, because they were considered a special group of players that deserves specific attention; however, the case number in the sample was too small to do justice to this group. Ultimately, N = 26,109 complete cases remained for analysis. The sample consisted of 17,579 female (67%) and 8,530 male participants (33%) with an average age of 37.1 years (SD = 13.3; range: 10–70 years).

We captured possible gaming motives by asking about the personal importance of several reasons to play. While the original item list was relatively long, the present research is focused on analyzing the data for selected single-item measures of those dimensions that were hypothesized to contribute to a specific gratification pattern of silver gamers (i.e., challenge, escapism, relaxation, competition, friendship, collecting/completism, see H1 to H6). Items (see Table 1) were partially adapted from existing studies [6, 7] and partially created for the purpose of the present survey. All items were customized to the “Farmerama” case of investigation. We applied a five-point Likert-type scale from 1 ‘completely disagree’ to 5 ‘completely agree’.

Table 1. Items used to assess the importance of reasons to play and their origin (translations of original German wording)
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The original questionnaire included further scales that are not relevant here, and demography questions, from which self-reports on gender and age (in years) were taken to explore age and gender effects on video game motivation. In order to be able to compare the importance of the motivational factors between older gamers and younger cohorts, players’ age was categorized in three groups: adolescents, adults and silver gamers. Although no commonly agreed definition for silver gamers has been proposed, users in their late fifties have mostly been categorized as elderly players, e.g., [10]. Hence, “silver gamers” were defined in the present contribution as players with an age of 55 and above. In addition, adolescents were defined as players with an age of 10 to 24, leaving the age-span of 25 to 54 years for adults.

4 Results

Prior to testing our hypotheses, we investigated the descriptive importance of the motivational factors (see Table 4). Across the entire sample, participants rated collecting/completism to be the most important reason to play “Farmerama” (M = 4.29; SD = 0.92), followed closely by challenge (M = 4.24; SD = 0.93), relaxation (M = 4.14; SD = 1.04) and escapism (M = 4.06; SD = 1.09). Friendship also seems to be a driver of playing “Farmerama”, although comparably less important, as participants’ mean score of agreement is located just above the scale center of 3 (M = 3.11; SD = 1.41). In contrast, competition turned out as less relevant motivational driver underlying the use of “Farmerama” (M = 2.45; SD = 1.39).

4.1 Effect of Age and Gender Across Motivational Factors

In a next step we calculated a MANOVA to investigate the overall effect of age and gender across the six motivational factors. Challenge, escapism, relaxation, competition, friendship, collecting/completism served as dependent variables, age group (adolescents vs. adults vs. silver gamers) as well as gender were included as independent variables. The multivariate test showed significant main effects for both age (F(12, 52198) = 134.120; p < .001) and gender (F(6, 26098) = 70.794; p < .001) as well as a significant interaction effect of both factors (F(12, 52198) = 19.009; p < .001). While significance is not a very meaningful indicator of the effects’ relevance given the large sample size (n = 26,109), the partialized effect sizes (eta2) indicate that at least both main effects are small but substantial (see Table 2). In contrast, the interaction effect explained less than half a percent of the variance across all motivational factors (part. η2 = .004) and is therefore not substantial. Thus, the following analysis will focus only on the main effects of age and gender.

Table 2. Multivariate main and interactions effects of age and gender across all motivational factors: challenge, escapism, relaxation, competition, friendship, collecting/completism (MANOVA using Pillai’s Trace; N = 26109)
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4.2 Effects of Age and Gender in Detail

To further explore these effects and test our hypotheses, six univariate ANOVAs were conducted – one for each motivational factor (see Table 3). Given the space constraints and the large sample size, we will only focus on substantial effects (partial eta-squared of nearly .01 or more).

Table 3. Main and interaction effects of age and gender on each motivational factor (ANOVA; N = 26,109)
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Challenge: In contrast to our prediction (H1) no meaningful age or gender differences were found for challenge (see Table 3). Rather the challenge motivation can be described as remarkably stable across the age groups and both genders. Hence, hypothesis 1 was not supported.

Escapism: Likewise, no substantial age and/or gender dynamics were obtained for the motivation to experience escapism. Thus, hypothesis 2 had to be rejected as well.

Relaxation: While again no robust main effect of gender was found, the main effect of the age groups is small but substantial (F(2, 26103) = 484.265, p < .001, part. η2 = .036). Post-hoc tests (Tamhane-T2) revealed that silver gamers (55-70 years) rated the relaxation motivation as significantly more important (M = 4.50; SD = 0.84) than adults (25–54 years; M = 4.21; SD = 0.99) and adolescents (10–24 years; M = 3.72; SD = 1.18; see Table 4). In addition, the difference between adults and adolescents is significant as well. Thus, in line with our hypothesis 3, the importance of relaxation as reason to play “Farmerama” increases with participants’ age and is more central for silver gamers than for younger player cohorts.

Table 4. Descriptive statistics for the main and interaction effects of age and gender on each motivational factor
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Competition: No substantial differences between the age groups were found for the motive competition, which disconfirms hypothesis 4. However, a small main effect of gender was identified (F(1, 26103) = 189.139; p < .001, part. η2 = .007). Converging with past research [8], male players rated the importance of competition slightly higher (M = 2.72; SD = 1.43) than female players (M = 2.32; SD = 1.36; see Table 4).

Friendship: While the main effect of gender was not substantial for the motive friendship, we found a small but robust main effect of age (F(2, 26103) = 130.903; p < .001, part. η2 = .01). Interestingly and in contrast to our assumptions (H5) a post-hoc analysis (Tamhane T-2) revealed that friendship is an equally important driver for playing “Farmerama” for silver gamers (M = 3.28; SD = 1.45) and adolescents (M = 3.36, SD = 1.38; see Table 4). However, both groups rated this motive to be more important than adults (M = 3.02; SD = 1.40). Hence, opposed to our prediction in hypothesis 5, the motive is important for rather young and old players but comparably less for adults.

Collecting/Completism: Similar to challenge and escapism, no robust age and/or gender effect on the importance of the motivational factor “collecting/completism” was found. Hence, in contrast to our prediction in hypothesis 6, silver gamers found this motivation equally important as younger players.

5 Conclusion and Discussion

The present study utilized a massive data set of casual game players from Germany to investigate differences in gamers’ motivational preferences between adolescents, adults, and silver gamers as well as between males and females. “Farmerama”, a very popular casual online game, served as case of investigation. As expected, the results of the MANOVA reveal that gamers’ motivation differ across age and gender, which resonates with past findings [8, 9, 32]. Interestingly, the motivational profile of silver gamers did not stand out as sharply against the profiles of younger gamer cohorts as one may have assumed, however.

5.1 Age and Recovery, Emotional Balance and Stress Motivations

Mixed results were found for the motivations related to recovery and emotional balance (i.e., relaxation, collecting/completism and escapism) as well as stress (i.e., challenges). Relaxation was connected closely to age. Older players find in casual games a welcomed opportunity to recover from daily stress or exhaustion, whereas this relaxation is less important for adults and even less for younger players. This finding converges with assumptions that research on non-interactive entertainment has derived from socio-emotional selectivity theory and age identity theory, as (a) older people value leisure time experiences that provide emotional balance and well-being more than younger individuals do [26], and (b) a relaxed, patient, non-hectic mode of playing is perceived to match with age identity of elderly people. Interestingly and in contrast to these theoretical perspectives, no age differences were found for the motivational factor “challenge”. Hence, although elderly players evaluate relaxation as a more important motivational driver of playing “Farmerama” than younger users do, this does not imply that silver gamers regard demands and challenges as unimportant attractors of playing “Farmerama”. In addition, no substantial age dynamics were revealed for the motivations “escapism” and “collecting/completism”, which are also connected to balance and recovery and should ‘fit to’ the age identity of elderly players.

Two explanations could be found for these mixed findings. First, one could argue that age differences regarding “relaxation” indeed reflect age-specific preference of entertainment media. The missing effects of age on the motivational factors “challenge”, “collecting/completism” and “escapism” could then be explained with the “universality” of these motives. All three motives could be understood as part of the core appeal of casual games like “Farmerama” [1, 35, 36]. This means that all players rate these motivations as important drivers for playing the game. Casual games are ‘fun for all’, because they offer interactive experiences of collecting virtual objects and solving (light, non-consequential) problems. Such pleasant, mildly active experiences can also function effectively for escapism purposes. Henning and Vorderer [37] argued that television can help particularly individuals with low need for cognition to avoid aversive states of cognitive demand – video games may help other audience segments that actually do not dislike thinking to experience escapism.

Second, an alternative explanation would be that socio-emotional selectivity theory and age identity theory are not useful to explain motivations related to recovery, emotional balance and stress. The effect we found for “relaxation” may then be explained with age dynamics in life circumstances and physical condition that could motivate older players to prioritize recovery-serving activities. For adults and even more for elderly people, work demands and personal responsibility burdens are typically higher than for younger people, which comes with greater needs for recovery, e.g., [38]. As casual games are often played during breaks or as a procrastination activity, the observed greater affinity of older players to the recovery motivation may thus be specific to this game genre and reflect effects of workload and occupational stress rather than age-specific preferences in entertainment quality, see [39, 40]. Given the multiple pathways of explanation and interesting implications for applied health interventions, the observed age dynamics in the recovery motivation to play a casual game certainly warrants further research.

5.2 Age and Social Motivation

Two social motivations to play “Farmerama” were addressed in the present study – the joys of playing together with friends and the positive experience of competing with peers (competition). While both factors do not seem to function as main drivers of “Farmerama” use (average scores range below those obtained for the factors discussed above), an age effect was observed for “friendship”. Adolescents and silver gamers value the social component of playing “Farmerama” to a higher extent than adults.

The comparably high importance of the motive for silver gamers is in line with the socio-emotional selectivity theory: Elderly players seek media content that allows them to maintain and strengthen positive interpersonal relationships with co-players. In contrast, the relatively high importance of this motive for adolescents is surprising. A media socialization effect may explain this pattern. Casual games can be treated as a multiplayer experience, but they also work as single-player activity. Currently, young ‘digital natives’ who grow up with an online-networked media environment may regard multiplayer gaming as a more natural, intuitive pattern of game use and thus be more able to take advantage of social entertainment than older players. In contrast, adults may have adopted “Farmerama” as a single-player game as they are neither psychologically motivated to play in a multiplayer mode (like silver gamers), nor regard multiplayer gaming as default mode of playing online games (like adolescents).

An alternative or possibly additive explanation for younger players’ greater valuation of social gaming motivations compared to adults, roots in developmental psychology, where the great importance of peers during adolescence has been documented. The implications of young people’s peer orientation for media use have also been shown – social networking and mediated interpersonal communication are particularly appealing to young people precisely because of their great interest to interact with peers, e.g., [41]. Video games and use of multiplayer options fits directly into this pattern of social media use, so younger players’ assignment of greater importance to social playing motives compared to adults may also be explained by developmental dynamics of peer orientation. From this perspective, casual games share important features and motivational power with social network sites and instant message services, e.g., [42].

In contrast to our assumptions, no age effect was found for competition. In this regard, the clear theoretical prediction that competitive activities should be more aversive for older people did not translate into an empirical motivational pattern of silver gamers. The most plausible explanation for this null effect of gamer age is the great diversity among older people [43]: Some segments of people aged 50 and older ‘still feel young’ and are interested in leisure time activities one would typically associate with younger cohorts. Deciding to play video games implies the readiness to engage in competition and performance pressure [25]. So, older people who choose video games for entertainment obviously belong to the fraction of their age group willing to compete and enjoying performance-based entertainment. The fact that silver gamers are equally competitive as younger gamer cohorts would, from this perspective, imply that silver gamers are ‘typical gamers’, but less ‘typical’ members of their age group, as they are more playful, active, and interested in competition.

5.3 Gender-by-Age Dynamics in Video Game Motivation

The findings do not show any interaction effects of age and gender on players’ video game motivation (RQ1). In contrast, the current study reproduced a rather stereotypical gender pattern of video game motivation, as competition was found to systematically vary between male and female gamers. Male players find competing with other players more motivating than female players, even in a game genre that is not primarily dedicated to competition (like shooter games, for instance, cf. [28]). The stability of the gender discrepancy in the competitive gaming motivation suggests a biological origin and/or a close connection of the competition motivation to male’s core self-concept – developmental processes do not seem to extinct the greater competition orientation in male players with increasing age (see [44] for a discussion of biological versus learned factors in media use and effects).

5.4 Limitations and Future Studies

The current findings need to be considered in the light of methodological limitations. First, no probability sample of “Farmerama” players was investigated, but a convenience sample of players who were sufficiently excited by the game to respond to an invitation that popped up at the end of a gaming session (self-selection bias). Moreover, “Farmerama” is only one of many casual online games, and generalizability of findings to other casual games and, even more importantly, to other video game genres can only be claimed with great caution. In addition, we only tested selected motivational factors for which gender and age effects could be assumed on a theoretical basis. Future studies should investigate a larger set of motives.

One important issue that needs to be discussed is that the current study refers to previous work on age dynamics in non-interactive entertainment preferences [22], but those studies inspected audience choices from a broad variety of messages (e.g., sad films versus comedy). The current work, however, looked at motivations of different age groups to play the same game – “Farmerama” was conceptualized as a motivational ‘buffet’ that can serve very different motivational preferences. This strategy may in fact prevent the detection of age dynamics or age-by-gender dynamics, as these dynamics may not so much become manifest in differences among players of the same game, but rather in developmental (or gender) discrepancies in preferences for different video game genres as indicated by the findings of Scharkow and colleagues [32].

Future work should address these limitations and continue the investigation of age and gender dynamics in video game motivation with improved samples, player audiences of other and different games, alternative research designs that mirror investigations of film or TV preferences (i.e., preferences for different types of games; such as Mares and colleagues [26]), and longitudinal approaches to lifespan developments in gaming motivation.

6 Conclusion

The key finding of the present study is that silver gamers do not seem to be ‘special’ gamers. Rather, their motivations to play games are mostly congruent with the reasons why younger people turn to gaming. Our findings suggest that there may not exist so much variation among gamers, but great variation among older people in terms of their interests, leisure time activities, and entertainment preferences. Some of those people aged 50 and higher identify themselves as gamers, but this does not mean that they differ substantially from younger gamers. Thus, silver gamers are older people who decide to expose themselves to a “young”, challenging, competitive medium.

Therefore, the age identity and socio-emotional selectivity processes [23] that we theorized to predict specific motivational patterns among silver gamers did not display empirical explanatory power. These processes are likely to operate at the level of media choice rather than at the level of how people play or what they seek in games – silver gamers may be a special group of older people (by choosing games as leisure activity), but not a special group of gamers. Future work on gaming motivations should thus work towards typologies of player motivations, e.g., [45], that focus on playing styles, genre preferences, and psychological qualities of entertainment and see whether types (clusters) emerge in which silver gamers are over- or underrepresented. Systematic age comparisons as in the present study suggest, in contrast, that there is no sharp specific entertainment profile of silver gamers as a group in its own right.