In 1997, when Ultima Online first released, Tess (known online as “TessPhyreForge”) didn’t own a computer. She didn’t know anything about computers. But she was dating a guy at the time who was really, really into Ultima Online. “He made me a character and sat me down and said, ‘This is what you do.’ Then after two hours I was hooked, and I've been playing ever since.”
After her then-boyfriend got her hooked on Ultima Online, Tess eventually purchased her own computer. And then another computer so her son could play with her.
“When he turned 14, the area we lived at, we had a couple pool halls and stuff like that where the kids would go hang out,” Tess says. “But it was so bad an atmosphere for teenagers and drugs and stuff that I told him I would rather buy the $10 a month subscription to play the game if he kept his grades up, and went to school, and didn't give me a hard time…So we actually ended up playing as a family.”
Tess is 59, and for her and other older adults like her in the online community Old Timers Guild (OTG), gaming has become a lifelong hobby that’s connected them not just with family and romantic partners, but with friends all over the world. Tess joined OTG in 2007 with the release of Lord of the Rings Online, and has been with them ever since. She’s played World of Warcraft, Star Wars: Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot, Atlas, and more Ultima. She’s made friends with people from Canada, the UK, and Japan. She’s currently a chapter leader for OTG’s Elder Scrolls: Online group, where she plays alongside hundreds of other OTG members several days a week. And many of them, she says, are fellow retirees.
“When I got injured at work, and I decided to retire for a few years, [video games] kept me sane, I guess,” she tells IGN. “I had something to do, because I just don't enjoy watching TV as much. There's a few shows I like, but I like interacting with people, so we get in our chat system. We use Discord and sit and just talk. Sometimes we talk about real life stuff, but we don't talk about religion or politics. That's one of our things that we don't talk about in our Discord with our members. You know, it's always about the game, and sometimes real life, about the grandkids or the kids, what they've achieved, what they're doing. Yeah, it's just a relaxing atmosphere.”
OTG was founded back in 2005, originally for the alpha test of Dungeons and Dragons Online. It saw a major surge in membership through the early ‘10s, branching out into multiple other MMOs and at one point boasting several thousand members across numerous different games. While not explicitly billed as a guild for senior adults, OTG has attracted perhaps a surprising number of members who are now in their 50s, 60s, and even older. Part of that is due to its billing as a guild for “older, mature” gamers with a minimum age limit of 25. Another reason might be due to its relatively laid-back atmosphere and strict “no drama” rule. And yet another reason could simply be due to its longevity as a guild: many members who joined as younger or middle-aged adults have stuck around, and are now approaching their senior years.
That’s certainly the case for Coharie, a 62-year-old member of OTG who joined the guild relatively early in its life cycle. Coharie’s first memories of playing video games involved sessions of Missile Command at a friend’s house when he was 18 years old, and then playing a flight simulator he had access to while in the Navy. He got hooked on MMOs when he returned from service and built a computer to play EverQuest with his whole family. He later moved to other MMOs such as Dark Age of Camelot, D&D Online, and joined OTG while playing Pirates of the Burning Sea.
“They're a pretty good size guild,” he says. “But it's just the laid-back-ness and the camaraderie of it and all that. And most of the people that I game with in World of Tanks in Wargaming are my age and stuff, but they won't put up with the drama and all that. That's the main thing is that and stuff. And I just like them. I've always been with them. Well, for this long.
“Some of them talk about their grandkids and stuff like that while we're playing. And a lot of times, if I'm in Wargaming, I'll do more talking than I'll do playing and stuff. I'm not the best player. I'm about probably average or maybe a little below average because I am older. Reflexes have gotten slower and stuff like that. I really don't care about stats. I just want to play.”
Reflection on Reflexes
There are, of course, some challenges to the OTG members working to keep up with video games as they age. One obvious example is Coharie’s aforementioned deterioration of twitch reflexes needed to play fast-paced games, such as online shooters. One OTG member who asked to go by “The Dude” told me this is something he’s struggled with recently, at the age of 54, but finds that older adults like him gravitate toward MMOs for this reason. “I think one of the nice things about MMOs is you can do it at your own speed, whatever speed is going to be,” he says. “And...I think as we get older, we really gravitate toward community, and MMOs are a great way to have that.”
Coharie, too, recognizes the motor struggles at play - but believes games can actually help keep reflexes sharp with age. “They've done a study that people my age and older that are still playing online games or games period, they tend to ward off the effects of Alzheimer's and lose the motor function in their hands and stuff. The coordination stays intact longer. And I work in a healthcare facility, and one of the residents there, she actually plays Final Fantasy [14]. She's in her mid-70s, playing Final Fantasy. She's played every scenario I don't know how many times. But she plays it, and it keeps her motor skills going and her mind sharp.”
Tess notes that another issue many members struggle with is the technology involved in gaming, especially with regards to PC upkeep. Many older OTG members will install a game they want to play, but if their computer can’t run it right away, they’ll give up rather than try to figure out what the problem is. What’s more, increasingly expensive graphics cards and other parts can be prohibited for seniors on more limited incomes.
Other technological struggles have impacted OTG as a guild, rather than just individuals. One 61-year-old OTG member who goes by Mosselyn tells me that for years, OTG used voice chat software Mumble, as well as a forum, for communication. Recently, though, the group moved to Discord, and while the move was technologically a successful one, a lot of members “just didn’t make that transition.”
“They found it hard to understand,” she says. “We tried really hard to offer help and encouragement to people to help them learn to use it, and it's just the traffic on the website fell off quite sharply after we did that. It's very unfortunate. I think it hurt us from a community perspective. The Discord, it's reasonably populated. It's the same thing. It's the same community of people who are comfortable with voice and who were able to make a transition to something new.”
That doesn’t mean OTG is dying by any stretch, though - it still has significant communities in games like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, Elder Scrolls Online, New World, and others. There are also plenty of members who use the guild channels to chat about games they’re playing on their own, such as Baldur’s Gate 3 or Starfield. And it helps, Mosselyn tells me, that OTG has a very generous community that’s willing to stretch itself to accommodate all skill levels or life situations.
“We have a super casual, anybody can come, open rating group in our WoW Alliance chapter. God bless her, the woman that runs that raid has been doing it for several years, and it's very much like cat herding,” she says.” I don't know how she hasn't pulled out every one of her hairs and just told us all to, excuse my French, f*** off, because we have a really wide skill range, especially, and a lot of that is age-related. You get folks with disabilities, but also you just get the 70-year-old lady who does not game like the 25-year-old kid.”
Both Mosselyn and Tess point to the example of a guild member named Trustee, a 93-year-old man who just recently bought a new gaming PC for Starfield.
“He is the sweetest guy,” Tess tells me. “Now, I remember one event that I had come to him, and I did this raid every Sunday. I said, ‘We can really use a good healer,’ because he likes to play a healer class. He goes, ‘Oh, I don't play on Sundays. That's the Lord's Day.’ He didn't play on Sundays, so we had to change the raid date for him so he could join.”