AARP launches new games web portal

AARP recently re-launched its web site. Part of the refresh is a new gaming area (sorry I should have said portal) provided by Arkadium

The VP for AARP’s Web Strategy and Operations says: "Boomers on the Internet spend more than 100 minutes of their leisure time per week playing video or computer games online.” That seems like a long time to me but as somebody who can’t complete the junior crossword that’s not surprising.

The sudoku phenomenon and the popularity of games widgets on social networking sites shows that there are lots of older people who are happy to waste (sorry) spend their life solving puzzles.

It looks a well designed web site. Something that interested me about the main AARP site is the prominent use of the term 50+. Maybe the 'Boomers' are on the way out? Dick Stroud

Retire and play more golf – maybe not

According to an article in the New York Times the total number of people who play has declined or remained flat each year since 2000 (according to the National Golf Foundation and the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association).

More troubling, if you are in the golf business, is the fall in the number of people who play 25 times a year or more. This has gone from 6.9 million in 2000 to 4.6 million in 2005.

The disappearance of golfers over the past several years is part of a broader decline in the US’s love of outdoor activities — including tennis, swimming, hiking, biking and downhill skiing.

Their has been expectations for a golf bonanza, paralleling Baby Boomer retirements, that has led to what is now considered a vast overbuilding of golf courses. Between 1990 and 2003, developers built more than 3,000 new golf courses in the United States, bringing the total to about 16,000. Several hundred have closed in the last few years.

The article gives lots of explanations for golf’s problems. I suspect that it simply a change in fashion. In the past the theory was, retire and improve your golf handicap. Life is no longer like that and instead of stopping work and settling down into a long slow round of golf ending on the final tee beside heaven’s gate, older people have far more adventourous ideas. I wonder what this means to the raft of golf-centric retirement villages that are planned to open? Dick Stroud

Playing online games - you don't need an excuse

Eons.com partners with RealArcade.com and with uClick.com for its downloadable titles as well as their Web browser games. And, most recently, has announced it signed with Redwood City, which specializes in multiplayer, online, community-building games. In addition eons is working with Bunchball.There is no intrinsic reason why you cannot enjoy gaming, aged 50 or aged 90. eons and the games companies suggest that game playing is good for the grey matter. The use it or lose it argument.

This article suggests that there is very little evidence to support the claim.

Enjoy playing games for the hell of it – don’t worry about needing an excuse. Dick Stroud