Attraction and Addiction Factors of Online Games on Older Adults: A Qualitative Study.

With the development of technology and new devices, online games have attracted more and more older adults. Exploring chances and challenges of the elder players become an important issue in the game industry. First of all, older adults have a lot of accesses to reach a new game, but it is unclear which way is the most effective one. Secondly, although adequate game playing is good for elders’ mental and physical conditions, game addiction is not. It is emergent to distinguish between the attractive and addictive factors of online games on older adults, and find a balance between them. A semi-structure interview is employed in this study. We analyze the qualitative data from four themes: older adults’ access to online games, factors that attract older adults to play online games, factors that lead to older adults’ addiction in online games, game design features that alleviate game addiction for older adults. This research is among the first to distinguish the attractive and addictive factors on elder game players, as well as provide practical implications for game company and designers.