“Nobody’s making games for the retired people” – The rising but underserved marketplace for gray players

Back in February, MachineGames head Jerk Gustafsson emphasised to GamesIndustry.biz that the video video games market nonetheless has room to develop. “I am 54 years old now,” he stated, “and I grew up with games – but I think I was also the first generation that grew up with games. So when I’m going into retirement, when I’m 70 years old, that should be the peak. That should be the peak of our install base, that should be the peak of people that have actually grown up playing games on a daily basis.”

Yet the video games business has been gradual to serve the rising ranks of gray players. “You have more and more players that are older… maybe 40, 50, 60 years old,” stated Emmanuel Rosier, director of market intelligence at Newzoo, within the “State of the Industry 2026” speak eventually week’s Nordic Game convention. “And if they are retired, they have even more money – but nobody’s making games for the retired people.”

It’s well-known that international locations such because the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and plenty of locations in Western Europe have ageing populations. According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, round 13% of the UK inhabitants was aged 65 or over in 1972. That leapt as much as 19% in 2022, and is projected to rise to 27% by 2072.

Importantly, these older individuals wish to play video video games. The analyst agency Ampere Analysis instructed GamesIndustry.biz that within the UK, there have been 6.62 million players aged 55 or over in 2025. That determine is projected to rise to 7.32 million by 2031. And throughout Western Europe as an entire, there have been 51.89 million players aged 55+ in 2025, a determine that is set to rise to 56.9 million by 2031.

Analyst Joost van Dreunen, the CEO of Aldora and former head of SuperInformation, tells GamesIndustry.biz that builders want to vary their pondering to deal with an older viewers.

“Developers have been ignoring older gamers for the same reason it took them decades to discover women,” he says. “The business has spent 40 years chasing the identical narrowly outlined viewers as a result of it was the most secure guess, till everybody was chasing it. Imagine if Hollywood solely made films for 18-year-old males. That’s roughly the guess video games have been making.

“The alternative is substantial. The 40+ phase within the US is on observe to develop from $19 billion in 2022 to $43 billion by 2030, a 132% enlargement at a second when the remainder of the business is shrinking. These are gamers with probably the most disposable revenue, the longest gaming literacy, and the very best model loyalty. They are additionally the least seen within the business’s dashboards as a result of the metrics had been constructed round youthful gamers who compete steadily. Older lifelong players do not, however they preserve taking part in, and so they preserve spending.

“What needs to change is the industry’s mindset. An entire generation has now grown up playing video games and is ageing into a life stage where they have time, money, and the desire to keep playing. The first publishers to actually see this player will capture a structural advantage. The rest will arrive 10 years late, exactly like they did with women.”

Catering for the older crowd

Veteran analyst Matthew Ball, who was put in as Xbox’s new chief technique officer final month, instructed The Game Business again in February that the business is not doing job of partaking older gamers exterior of informal cellular video games.

“We are definitely losing that cohort,” he stated. He suspects that older players are prone to take huge breaks between play periods, and a part of the difficulty is that video games usually aren’t good at reorienting gamers after they come again after a break. “There is a mismatch between the general investment in tutorials for the first few minutes, relative to where actually the player loss happens,” Ball stated.

“Most games don’t lose players after 30 minutes, they lose them much later. You put the controller down and you don’t come back. And that’s partly because the map has expanded, the tools have expanded. You’re like, ‘holy crap, the skill tree, what did I have to prioritise?’ That, I suspect, is going to be a lot more important for that older game demo. Partly because, when there’s user testing, it’s usually not asking: ‘how hard is boss nine for a 58-year-old who hasn’t touched a controller in over two weeks?'”

But how will the older crowd play video games? “When we ask, ‘What will people be playing next year?’, we’re perhaps asking the wrong question,” says Larry Kuperman, who was vice chairman of enterprise growth at remake specialists Nightdive Studios till retiring in March. “I think the question that should come up first is: ‘What will we be playing it on?'”

He reckons it is unlikely that gray players will likely be taking part in on closely specced-out PCs or next-generation consoles (particularly given the massive {hardware} worth rises we have seen of late). “If you look at the types of games that people can play on ordinary machines, on the kind of machine that grandma and grandpa have at home that still has AOL dial-up – I shouldn’t say that, but close – but if you look at that, there are really two categories that are going to benefit.”

One is video games like Roblox, which run on low-powered units and are basically platforms in themselves. “I don’t see them penetrating into that demographic,” says Kuperman. “But that brings you down to other categories that have been growing, like cosy games, casual games, and retro. And retro has an advantage in that audience in that you don’t need the latest [computer].”

He additionally thinks there’s a possibility to rekindle manufacturers or IPs that enchantment to an older demographic, giving the examples of Nightdive’s remasters of Turok, Blood, and Star Wars: Dark Forces. “These are brands that will resonate with that community. I don’t want to say that if you say to somebody over 65, ‘Oh, it’s a souls-like’, they won’t understand what you’re talking about, but if you mention Star Wars, they go, ‘Yes, I know that, I know that brand’.”

Come again to what you recognize

Andrew Byatt, CEO of Blaze Entertainment, the makers of the retro-focused Evercade console household, says that loads of the corporate’s prospects are returning to gaming after a very long time away. “We find there’s a lot of lapsed gamers,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz. “They really want to re-experience stuff that they did when they were younger.”

He thinks this group is underserved. “If all developers are focusing on these huge cinematic experiences, and they’re aiming at teenagers and [people in their] early 20s, that kind of age group, then I think they are missing a trick.”

He provides that along with their in-built model recognition, retro video games are inclined to have a bonus for the older crowd by way of their relative brevity compared with trendy titles. Older gamers may need extra disposable revenue, he says, “but they may have less time. They’ve got busy jobs and everything else. And actually these retro experiences are good for that.”

Like Kuperman, he reckons the older technology won’t essentially be dashing out to purchase costly gaming {hardware}, which is why Blaze gives inexpensive, entry-level units within the type of the self-contained Super Pocket handhelds. “I think that’s important for this crowd,” he says, “because they might not be super-committed, hardcore gamers.”

Importantly, he thinks there is a missed alternative on the subject of making gaming’s wealthy again catalogue extra broadly obtainable. “I’ve always had a bit of a frustration with the difference between gaming and music and film,” Byatt says. “Music and film is so well curated and accessible, and you can find almost everything from every year using different services… And I think gaming just hasn’t really done that.”

Yet Byatt emphasises that retro video games aren’t the one strategy to tempt the older crowd – there’s additionally room for brand spanking new builders. “Retro is obviously a natural fit for these types of games, but we do have modern retro as well. We publish stuff from people developing for old systems that are still doing that today, and we also have some indie stuff, which is very retro themed. But I think that there is certainly a growing market – and they’ve got more money.”

Of notice, the varieties of promoting that enchantment to the youthful demographic, like viral TikTok campaigns and glitzy video showcases, won’t essentially minimize by way of to older audiences. “Email is still the most powerful marketing tool for us,” says Byatt. “Our email list is gold. It’s how we reach our customers. It’s more powerful than our social media channels.”

No twitch shooters

Jack Emmert, who rejoined MMO maker Cryptic Studios as CEO earlier this 12 months, thinks there’s an enormous alternative to focus on older players. “Give me a 50 year old every day over a teen,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz. “The 50 year old has disposable income. The 50 year old is coming to a point when they have time, they want their childhood back.”

“I’m 57 and I still game. I’m going to game in 10 years, and probably in another 10 years.” But he thinks that the forms of video games he’ll play will change as he will get older – and video games should be designed to accommodate the talents and needs of older gamers.

“I can’t do twitch games for more than 30 minutes at a time, because my hands hurt,” Emmert says. “That means that when I’m designing games, I’m going to be thinking about that. And I’m going to be thinking about, ‘Well, what does a 60 year old want to play? What moment in the past do they want to recapture?’ And that, to me, is vital.”

Perhaps mockingly, the fast-paced Nineteen Eighties arcade video games which have huge enchantment to gamers who keep in mind them from their youth are additionally a number of the most tough for them to play. But Emmert factors out there are many retro titles that do not require quick reflexes. “That’s where the old-style RPGs are great, like Baldur’s Gate.”

“Give me a 50 year old every day over a teen. The 50 year old has disposable income”

Jack Emmert

Yet on the subject of accommodating the wants of older gamers, Emmert thinks the most important factor that is holding the business again is that there are so few recreation designers within the 50-plus age bracket. “There are no elder statesmen. And I think this has hurt the industry tremendously. We lose tons of experience constantly, because gaming is always focused into a younger demographic… And I don’t know whether they consciously do it, or it’s subconscious, but it’s just a fact.”

Emmert thinks that as a result of the vast majority of individuals making video games are younger themselves, they do not essentially consider the older viewers when making them. “It’s that simple,” he says, including that video games advertising and marketing is overwhelmingly aimed on the youthful technology.

“Give me those 60 year olds who watched Star Trek the original series,” he concludes. “Come on down, play Star Trek Online with me.”