When do you hit your prime in gaming?

I'd even say earlier.

Was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we were discussing Metal Gear Solid. We'd be in the early to mid 20s and remember the PS1 version of this and having a fun breezing through it. Took a break from gaming during my last year in college and when i finally got to sit down to MGS4, i was playing like a girl, hiding in a corner on the first level for about 2 hours

Starting to get over it (nearly finished MGS4) but def shook me for a while. I'd have no problem tackling any game about 4 years ago, now, i'm a pussy

I'd say about 15-17 for me. If I put in the practice I could get back to that level easily enough.

2003-2008 for me, I can feel myself going downhill now. So, 15-21. for me.

RedXIV wrote: »

I'd even say earlier.

Was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we were discussing Metal Gear Solid. We'd be in the early to mid 20s and remember the PS1 version of this and having a fun breezing through it. Took a break from gaming during my last year in college and when i finally got to sit down to MGS4, i was playing like a girl, hiding in a corner on the first level for about 2 hours

Starting to get over it (nearly finished MGS4) but def shook me for a while. I'd have no problem tackling any game about 4 years ago, now, i'm a pussy

In fairness MGS3 I played 3 or 4 years ago was just hard as balls, if you ask me. I got frustrated with it, I believe, on the old sniper guy. Though I hear he dies of Old age if your save file sits idle long enough - which is funny - but only indicates they knew the dude was BS when they put him in there.

There's more to gaming than reflexes, especially as games become more tactical and complex. Being able to pattern your opponents quickly is a skill that comes with experience, knowing where they will be, what weapon they will likely have etc. and being prepared has as much value as being faster on the mouse. I hit my peak in gaming probably about 3 years ago, mid 30s, I still rise to the top on the servers/games I choose to play against guys I know are faster and have better aim because I can predict their play or outmaneuver tactically.
In short I think as you get older you only move out of your zone when you choose to.....well at least until your get so old your eyes start to fade and arthritis fks with your mouse hand

12 - 15.
Pretty much took a break from gaming in the 20 - 25 age range other than maybe resident evil. Too busy socialising. Only started again at about 26\27.

In regards to gaming prime... usually between 4pm and 10pm daily.

I've noticed that my brain almost starts to try and force a shutdown now at around 2am. I can't usually touch SFIV online after 10pm as my brain just doesn't want to operate at that speed anymore. Coffee or stimulants don't help either.

I don't think I've lost ability, I've just lost motivation. I just don't have the patience any more that's needed to become amazing at a game. Once I think I'm better than 50% of the other players out there in a game I just say "that's good enough" and stay at that level.

I think I'd rather be above average in a wide variety of gaming genres than amazing in only a handful of titles.

In QWTF when I was about 16 I was one of the top 5 snipers in Sydney. I could actually function as an attack sniper as I could take out soldiers 1 on 1. I have no idea how I was that fast when I look at how I play now. In tf2 I can hit stuff pretty well, but I am no better than average anymore. Age plays a part in hand/eye co-ordination. I think partying and drink tooks its toll too. Im 30 now.

It depends on the game, and at what level you play, and at what your style of play is.

Some replies are along the lines of 'When you are at college, because that's when you have most time to play'. That's not a very interesting response in some ways - obviously, you'll be better when you are practising vs when you are not practising. When are 10K runners at their best? Well, obviously its when they are training.

But if you are talking about in terms of raw potential, then its more interesting to consider the case if you were to play games a lot, all the time.

Then it would depend on the game somewhat.

Games are going to take a certain amount of accumulated experience to learn all the rules, the patterns, the tactics. For some games this might take a few days (think Snap, with a deck of cards, or maybe an extremely simple shooter), for some games, it might years.

For example, Chess players typically have to start young, so they've played for many years, to reach their peak in terms of experience, when near their peak in terms of age driven mental ability. I've no reason to suppose that certain classes of deep complex strategy game don't have a similar set of curves.

To put it another way, if you've a game thats complex to the point that it takes 20 years to learn all the advanced strategies, you aren't going to peak at 23, even if the game incorporates a reflex element.

I suspect it takes many years to learn all the common patterns and strategies in a complex game like Starcraft.


In terms of pure reflexes and motor neuron speed, I often anecdotally hear that its younger people who have better reflexes (old gamers complain about this!) I don't know about the science behind it, but this abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2921473 would seem to say that people peak in terms of reaction speed in their 20s, and go downhill from there.

So, if its possible to fully learn the tactical best play of the game you are playing, in your 20s, and if the game has a reflex component (so, many shooters), then 20s is probably a good answer.


How much of a significant factor reaction speed, vs learned skill, is will depend game to game. Perhaps theres an intelligence and determination aspect to it too - some people might never take it seriously enough to be learning the skills consciously, or maybe some people just don't have the aptitude to - I dunno.


Personally, anecdotally, I think a huge part of many shooters (CS etc) is tactical play, and that once you hit a certain standard of intermediate reaction and aiming ability, it very much comes down to doing the numbers on the situation, so you have a higher probability of encountering your opponent in a situation thats advantageous to you, rather then them.

So, for example, ideally you attack your opponent from behind; or even more subtly, from an angle that they didn't expect - sure, you might lose, theres a certain randomness in most encounters, but on the averages, the extra split second means you'll win more than you lose.
Equally, you set up the condition so that you've got a longer range weapon at longer ranges - you could still take an unlucky HS, but on average, you'll do better.
Its like poker - you don't always win with the better hole cards, but being good is about simply having better averages, and over the game, this stacks up.

I personally think there's a huge degree of learned skill in this to get to this stage. I had to play CS (casually) for many years before I got reasonably good at it.

So, in a nutshell, the answer to the question probably depends a lot on the specific game in question - how much learning is required, and how much benefit is there to learn beyond a certain point? Obviously, if the best (dominant) strategy is always a tank rush, then it comes down to who clicks fastest to build tanks. But in a complex, balanced game, I think there can be a lot of learning before you get to the point of diminishing returns, and factors like reflexes start to balance out.

I think for a game like CS, there's a really interesting combination - deficiencies in tactics can be compensated somewhat for by aiming skill, and vice versa, but you need both, and to reach your peak, you probably need to be well trained and practised at both, and probably at an age where your reflexes are still pretty sharp too. Of course, I'm not sure how many people there are playing games at that level of seriousness.
I certainly don't have time to!

The last games that I feel I became absolutely brilliant at were Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64. I played them a huge amount though, way more than I play anything these days.

I can afford to buy most games these days, so I go through them very quickly. I imagine I'm better at games generally than I was in the Goldeneye days (aged 11), but don't put as much time into any one game anymore.

There is, however, an exception to this trend in Resident Evil 5, where I invested about over a few weeks. The spoiler tag is there to hide my shame...

While in college and then on the dole and once i got a job it has gone downhill but getting back into now on the xbox360 so many good titles...

playing battlefield 1943 the other day, got a headshot on practically a pixel so i guess I still got it! (luck, that is) :P

I don't play that much anymore but I stll get in cod5 (hardcore search and destroy) and get sum kills. My brother got all the prestiges and I didn't even get the 1st one, but I still go there and blow some meat up. still I think that the party chat is the best part.

edit: forgot my age. 36. So all is rainbows and candies I guess.

Pugsley wrote: »

The 15-21 region that EmSixTeen suggested sounds about right.

The only truely competitive (computer) game is Starcraft, and modern pro gamers at that are picked up at about 14-15 and after about 2-3 years of intense practice and coaching their fit for proleague play. Some get there quicker than others, ie: KTF Flash, was playing Starcraft on national TV in South Korea at the age of 13/14, won his first title at 15, and has been the best Terran player in the world for the last 3 years (although recently Fantasy is up there too)

Most gamers go downhill pretty steeply after their mid twenties, as can be seen in the Starcraft world and FPS's. Fatality and Voo both went downhill after their twenties and stopped being the top 2 is the world, and in CS the SK team that dominated CS 1.3-1.5 got ousted and replaced as the younger players came about and replaced them, their reactions couldn't keep up.

[citation needed]
But seriously - while it makes sense to me that it is a lack of reactions - couldn't it also be that they got less determined when they got older, or that a new individual or team, with better tactics or training regimen, (tactics in a sport tend to evolve and improve over time) came along, and beat them because of the better conditioning?

Its not easy to put a finger, definitively, on what caused it...
...if the best players had some sort of objective reaction test that they did over time, and it was possible to track their deterioration on it, and correlate that with falling performance, then that'd be interesting. Otherwise you have to be careful coming to conclusions...

I think the 8 and 16 bit generations would be the more experianced gamers as we had to put up with the glitches and bugs that were found in the (s)NES and sega era.

I think I may have peaked last year as I notice that im not as swift on MW2 as i was on MW and cod5.

In therms of enjoyment, i think the peak is when you dont look foward to games anymore. I was like a child when MW2 came out, same with the new mario bros game.
So I figure my inner 16bit child is still breaking through at times.
I loved MGS on the PS1, but MGS4, it bored the crap outta me. Even though i love stragey games.
I remember the day when I deleted WoW off my computer as one day i noticed, my phone hadnt been turned on in 4 days. So that was enough of that.
I still love gaming. But miss the old days when I used to get sucked into the game and felt i was apart of it. Now, at times, I know im only playing a game. I know im not Etzio, But I felt like I was Altair.
I hope i never get bored of gaming. Its a great way stimulate the mind.