Day care for people with brain ages over 65
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-06-06As gamers age we are being presented with a new opportunity to provide services to the elderly that have never been available to them before. Of course, these services were never requested before either. In Japan a lucrative market for elderly gamers has risen within their aging society. While gaming seems to be more engrained in the culture of Japan than in the US, I see it as only a matter of time before we too are faced with an elderly population that fully supports gaming. How will we deal with this changing paradigm? Possibly with senior discount cards for EB Games, or GTA/Depends crossovers, but more likely we will look to the changing gaming attitudes in Japan today.
The BBC is running a story about a group they term as Grey Gamers. At 26 I have a couple of grey hairs and a brain age of 80, but I am not the demographic they are referring to. The story is about the growing trend of aging gamers in Japan and how Japan is meeting the needs of these gamers. The first bit of the article talks about Nintendo DS classes. In these classes the blackboard is a DS and the course materials are copies of Brain Age, or Brain Training for Adults. People over 40 are shown how to operate the DS, and how to play the game. They even buy into the touch generations marketing and do some Real World Golf as well.
The class is actually reaching beyond the aging current gamer and recruiting new people into the gaming fold. Emiko Kuramochi, described as a grey gamer, says “I wanted to try this popular brain training game for myself. My sons can play these games but I can’t and I want to challenge them.” Emiko then got beat by her son in a rousing game of PGR3 (Just kidding, no one in Japan owns an Xbox 360).
The other interesting part of this article was Namco’s approach to the same issue. In Japan they are also on the Brain Games bandwagon, as it is a lucrative bandwagon to be on in Japan. While I doubt it will ever be a popular in the US, I believe this is due more to social stigma associated with gaming and not because we have any less draw towards fads like the whole Brain Training phenomena. As the increasing number of brain training books, and sudoku puzzles demonstrates. Namco has created an adult day care, where you can drop off your elderly and they will be treated to all manner of games, to keep their wits fresh. They can play drum games, brain games, and even use the claw to win sweets for their grandkids. The idea is to keep the elderly engaged both mentally and physically within a safe environment that other alternatives like motocross can not provide.
I think supporting the grey gamer movement is absolutely required, and an all around good idea. While the elderly of last generation met in the senior center and played bridge and checkers, the elderly of today can do the exact same thing, but with different games designed to help them lives longer and fuller lives. Instead of yelling bingo they can hum the Mario theme song while staying in better mental and physical health.