My name is Rebekah Valentine. I’m a journalist for IGN.com. I have a pretty weird spread of beats, ranging from covering video game industry earnings calls, to in-depth investigations into studio culture, to a monthly column about indie games. But one of my favorite beats involves community reporting - digging into video game communities and sharing what makes them special with our audience. And that’s why I’m here today.
I’m here because I’d like to write about Old Timers Guild for IGN. More specifically, I’ve been curious for a while about folks who are older than the perceived “traditional” gaming audience, but who play games just as enthusiastically as younger players. The general perception of “gamers” (including from IGN’s audience) is a mix of children playing kids games, teens, and younger adults in their 20s and 30s, maybe into their 40s. But for some reason, conversations about gamers often fail to acknowledge that many, many people who are older than that love and enjoy the same games just as much, especially now that video games themselves (as a mainstream hobby) are roughly 50-60 years old themselves! Why would people stop playing?
I’d love to chat with some folks in their 50s and up who are part of OTG and love to play games for a story about the community. The questions are breezy - I’d love to know a bit about who you are, how you got into games, how long you’ve been playing, why you play, how your gaming habits have changed over time, and what you’re excited about playing right now. Maybe a question or two about any challenges or misconceptions you’ve faced in the process, if you’re up for it. I can conduct interviews in whatever way is most comfortable for you, whether that’s a phone call, email, other voice chat service, or anything else.
If you’re interested, I’d love to hear from you! Please kick me an email at rvalentine@ign.com and we’ll set something up. I’m happy to answer any questions you have about my project beforehand, too.
Thanks all for your time! Hope you’re all playing something good right now.
Hell I’m game set me up, best time to catch me is before 7:30pm when I go to bed but I’ll get up around 9:00pm to pee and wander around the house for 2 to 3 hrs looking for something that I have no idea what it is and at 11:00pm take my cocktail of drugs that I got from my pusher, err pharmacist
Hi Coharie! I’d love to chat - do you mind sending me an email at rvalentine@ign.com? That way I can get a number or whatever other info and set up a time to call you at.
Thanks, Tess. I know she was working on the article, but IDK what the lead time is for publication. Sometimes it can be pretty long. I expect she’ll probably give us a heads up.
I really enjoyed speaking with you all and hearing about the adventures you’re all having together. I hope here in 20, 30, 40 years and more I’m having just as much fun gaming still as you all are.
I’m here because i read the IGN article about OTG. And because a few of those OTG’s mentioned played Dark Age of Camelot - the MMO that got me started in gaming. Happy to have discovered OTG - Thanks DuckValentine.
Great work by all who contributed and the author! Scary to think we have been around for so long and still have so many of the original members… and are still growing. I suppose you really can’t run out of Old Timers.
Moss and Tess, you let them run your ages? Scandalous! I thought that was top secret red level access information. Not that I am any spring chicken of course…
Again, thanks to those that contributed and for the memories dredged up. Good to stir the brain matter on those days.
That is where I got my start. I started as Albion on Igraine, then I moved to Midgard on either Kay or Morgan Le Fay, but ended up on Gaheris (the PVE server) and was a member of Chimera and The Ancients for a while. I found OTG in LOTRO (or maybe even LOTRO beta) and been here ever since.
She reached out to the Admins first, and I’ve spoken with her myself.
