Domesticating Gaming: An Intergenerational Study of Online Gaming Behaviors Among Older Gamers

There has been an increase in the number of older people who have taken up playing digital games, due to the development and simple accessibility of gaming devices, which encouraged older adults to become new gamers, and the fact that many long-term gamers have entered their middle and later years. Based on dyadic semi-structured interviews with older players and their family members, this chapter analyzes how older adults and their family members “domesticate” online games jointly constructing and redeveloping the meaning of gaming, while facing the aging-related changes. Drawing upon the framework of domestication theory, this chapter argues that the domesticating gaming in aging families is a dynamic process that entails collaborative efforts from older adults and their family members, especially their children. Older adults and their families assigned different meanings to gaming practices, constructed an introverted and family-centered play space and kept adjusting and “re-domesticated” their gaming habits in response to aging-related changes in physical, cognitive, and social changes.