Move Over, Junior

Karin Martin regularly finds herself locked in battle with gods, dragons and other evil creatures from another world. But the 67 year-old Berliner has no problem defending herself. She's well armed and has a whole host of magic tricks she can fall back on.

"Two Worlds" is her favorite computer game. She plays for about two hours every day and says computer and online games are now her main hobby. "The graphics are excellent and it's great to be able to make the figures do what I want," she enthuses.

Karin is visiting the Games Convention in Leipzig with her friend, 64-year-old Inge Rappold, whom she got to know through the Internet while playing solitaire. These two women of a certain age have been playing against each other for a year but have only just met in person for the first time.

Market woos silver surfers

Inge and Karin are just two members of the newly discovered market known as "silver surfers."

Younger visitors to this year's Games Convention are finding they're increasingly having to share the consoles with grey-haired figures also eager to check out what's new. The oldest convention visitor is 86 and the market for interactive games software now has the new consumer group squarely in its sights.

According to the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, people over 65 make up 16 percent of the population in Germany and account for 30 percent of purchasing power. In a special report on the silver surfers, the European Interactive Advertising Agency reveals that a quarter of the 55 plus generation surf the Internet regularly. On average they're online seven hours a week.

The oldies are also turning to the world of virtual games in increasing numbers.

"The market's booming," said Eva Steinhorst of GameDuell, Germany's biggest Internet games portal, which has with five million registered players.

"In the last 12 months alone, we've registered an increase of more than 100 percent among the 50-plus group," she said.

Whereas for younger players entertainment is the main attraction, silver surfers are often more interested in games that can provide memory training or keep their manual skills and reflexes up to speed. The results of a GameDuell user poll in July 2007 show that "women are more interested in games using logic, while men prefer action or general knowledge games," said Steinhorst.

Little interest in shoot-'em-up games

What's important for this market is that "the games should be easy to learn or players should already be familiar with them, like solitaire," Steinhorst said. "Otherwise elderly users are put off."

Prices are often considered too high. Hardly anyone's prepared to spend 30 to 50 euros ($40 to $67) on a single CD-ROM.

"Glitzy packaging with not much inside doesn't attract elderly users either" said Jürgen Bewilogua from the "Elderly in the Net" project in Leipzig.

He carried out a study into how senior citizens benefit from computer games. "Motor skills can be trained with a mouse and there are many strategy and role-playing games which are good for mental fitness," he says.

So-called edutainment software is also interesting for older users. "We've tested history games like the Napoleonic wars" says Bewilogua. "Older users were delighted."

But there's no market for war games or shoot-'em-ups. "They bring back bad memories for the war and post-war generations" Bewilogua explains.

But "Galilea03," alias Karin Martin, disagrees. She's an ace at shooting down moorhens and sinking pirate ships, and she's come to Leipzig to see what else is on offer. Together with her silver-haired friend Inge, alias "Mecki," she'll be spending nearly the whole time till the fair closes on Sunday at the consoles.

And their husbands? "They've stayed at home" says Karin "they'll find something to do together but it won't be playing computer games."