Making a living as a games developer is challenging — but the strange thing is that it becomes more challenging the longer you do it. Mark over at Kotaku has a great and detailed examination of the problem of ageism in the games industry.
Experience, it turns out, is both a blessing and a curse — some studios won’t hire you because you’re too expensive, and 20-somethings aren’t always comfortable working with someone twice their age. It’s a good read and well worth your time.
The Subtle Demon: The Games Industry’s Problem With Ageism [Kotaku]
Comments
2 responses to “Age Discrimination Is A Problem For Games Developers”
I see the same thing affecting video-game engagement especially by older generations.
For example, in the late 1990s, someone I know brought around a Sony PlayStation and hired a copy of a cricket video game and invited a 50-something-year-old close friend who is enamoured by Test cricket to play this game. The older friend had found that the game was difficult to play and always required the younger person who owned the console to help him with it.
I wrote about this in an article on my HomeNetworking01.info Website concerning console-based video games with one point highlighting the idea of making these consoles appeal to user classes beyond the young males. Here, I covered the issue of titles that appeal to more users (including giving access to marketing space for these titles) along with improvements in the consoles’ and games’ useability. The article is at http://homenetworking01.info/2014/12/ways-we-can-see-console-gaming-improve/ .
My parents thought buzz the music quiz for ps3 was the greatest game ever created. Besides Alex kidd. What do they have in common? They’re easy to control.
Games are quite complex these days so if they are something new all the controls can be a bit overwhelming. See phone games. Easy. Simple and some very successful.