When I’m Old,

I Will (Still) Be a Gamer

Mixing players withvarious capacitiesThe aim of our work is to prove thatdesigning for and with elderly peopleis beneficial. Indeed, the game willhave to be very adaptable, due to thehuge variety of gamers abilitiesprofiles. This will lead to create newdesign processes and to find newsolutions. This game flexibility willserve all the players, alowing them totune the game according to theirskills/abilities.

Accessibility and FunHow do we ensure that older gamershave or keep access to video games ?Even though some researchersrecently studied the relationshipbetween video games and elderlypeople, it was (and still is) mostly inthe context of serious or appliedgames (‘games with a pur-pose’).Only a few of them have addressedthe issues of fun and playerengagement for older players.However, both are needed to ensurea good user experience.

ContextOriginally designed for entertainmentpurposes and dedicated to a youngpopulation of gamers, video gameshave grown up during the lastdecades.As a consequence, the variety of thepopulation concerned with videogames has changed as well. Untilnow, the target group of elderlypeople had never been privileged bythe industry, whereas the firstgenerations related to the video game(currently between 40 and 50 y.o.) aregrowing older and will become thenext challenge of the video gameindustry.

Références[1] Astell A, Alm N, Dye R, Gowans G,Vaughan P, Ellis M. LNCS, Springer-Verlag2014;8547(1);264-271 doi:10.1007/978-3-319-08596-8_42[2] Salmon JP, Dolan, SM, Drake RS, WilsonGC, Klein RM, Eskes GA. Entertain Comput2017;21:45-64 ISSN 1875-9521https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2017.04.006.[3] De Schutter B, Nap H-H, Brown JA,Roberts AR. Gerontechnology 2014;13(2):277 doi:10.4017/gt.2014.13.02.131.00[4] https://www.includification.com[5] http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com[6] Silver Geek Tournament 2018Gamers Assembly, Poitiers, France

Contactsjerome.dupire@cnam.fra.sponselee@fontys.nl

Jérôme DUPIREConservatoire National des Arts et Métiers

Paris, France

Anne-Mie SponseleeFontys Hogeschool Mens en Gezondheid

Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Call of Duty 2

Current SituationWhen talking about video games forthe elderly, the current trend willquickly move towards games withsimple gameplay and simpleinteractions.The WII has become the mostpopular platform in this context withits "party game" style and its simplecontrollers (especially the WIImote),which allow gesture basedinteraction.The offer available for older players istherefore far from complete. Sincethe huge majority of mainstreamvideo games offer very fewaccessibility options, older playersare de facto excluded from mostvideo game experiences.

EsportThe esport scene is growing rapidely and the competitionsinvolving aged players are rare but already exist and develop fromyear to year. This track is another opportunity to get developers toimprove the accessibility of their video games and considerinnovative game configurations (from an hardware, software orregulatory point of view).

InspirationResearch on game design for elderlypeople has to be emphasized (at leastfor an obvious demographic reason),especially in order to become a sourceof inspiration to design or identify bestpractices that could be generalized forthe improvement of inclusion(meaning everybody, not only theinclusion of elderly people) in themainstream video game production.Indeed, if a game design fits for oldergamers, it means that the contentand gameplay is relevant, engaging,and/or fun for this population and isaccessible to it (from a cognitive,motor and/or sensory point of view). Itmight lead us to propose newdirections to the existing gameaccessibility guidelines.