The Adoption of Digital Games Among Older Adults

Abstract

The revolution of technology brings many benefits towards diverse population. Digital game is one of the digital technologies that has potential to facilitate older adults’ daily routine. However, some of them faces challenges to adopt the usage of digital games in their daily lives, one of which is that most commercial games are not suitable for older people. This paper discusses the investigation into the challenges associated with the older adults’ adoption of digital games, their interaction, and experiences with digital games and specifically explores the andragogical perspectives, and game design attributes. A set of questionnaires consisted of open-ended and close-ended questions were distributed, targeting the older adults across Malaysia, using online and non-probability sampling technique. 81 respondents were recruited, and 56 respondents (n=56) were eligible in this study. Four participants were recruited for informal interview session. The analysis of the results indicates that the older adults’ perception of digital games and game design aspects are the major factors influencing their digital game adoption. Game designs are important to attract many older adults to experience and interact with digital games