Video games are no longer a topic only for and by young people. The Millennial generation, for example, has not emerged as an isolated case, nowadays it is not so rare to live in a family in which the first generation of gamers is not represented: video games have a certain age, and many gamers of the first hour, those young people who before 2000 were no more than twenty years old, are now adults, perhaps married with children.
I personally have several gamer friends who are now married and who will undoubtedly pass on their passion for gaming to their children, directly or indirectly, because they continue to actively play. Similarly, although my father has never been a regular gamer, we have played a few games of early versions of San Andreas together and he - albeit to a lesser extent - also has a rough knowledge of famous genres and franchises.
Undoubtedly, each generation has its own tastes and gaming habits. But this is something that is not limited to video games alone, but is an aspect of the cultural industry and life in general, such as clothing, food, passion for movies or series, etc., and video games are no exception.
Gaming has changed profoundly in recent years, and the video game that Baby Boomers first approached is very different from the one enjoyed by Generation Z or Millenials.
The video game sector has been the subject of several surveys lately as it has become a multi-million dollar a year industry, trying to capture gaming preferences and attitudes, and in this case, the data analysis has been carried out by the well-known international consultancy firm Newzoo, which has statistically shown a global vision of the gaming market in 2021, analysing the gaming habits of a representative sample of four generations of players (instead of the two most popular ones usually analysed, such as Millenials and Gen Z): Baby Boomers (between 56-65 years), Gen X (between 41-55 years), Millennials (between 2 5-40 years) and Gen Z (between 10-24 years).
The entertainment of the future has broken down generational barriers. / El entretenimiento del futuro ha derribado las barreras generacionales.
In this respect, the studies carried out leave no room for doubt: video games are the main source of entertainment for the new generations, in other words, they are the entertainment of the future.
Gaming, as a cultural instrument, has penetrated this sector of the industry slowly and gradually but steadily, gradually banishing old taboos that for decades have labelled them in an unseemly manner, from the accusation of corrupting young minds to - most frequently - making an exaggerated use of leisure and free time.
Nowadays, no one is surprised that a young person makes video games a regular fixture in his or her daily life, demonstrating the penetration that video games have reached in entertainment habits, to the point of representing the most important recreational activity for the so-called Generation Z. Even -in some games- their cultural added value has been recognised, especially in strategy, civilisation, logic and other games that go far beyond the traditional fighting and shooting games.
Other entertainment factors such as television, cinema but especially reading have undergone remarkable changes in the passage from one generation to the next. To put it another way, people used to read much more than they do now. And traditional TV with its traditional and pre-fixed schedules and static programming has been replaced by the dynamicity of streaming platforms like NetFlix, Amazon and others. However, gaming has managed to remain the link between one generation and another. Music itself is the only market in this cultural industry that has been able to adapt, like video games, to the times more quickly, even if Napster at the time and now Sotify are setting a different course, but the passion remains.
Generation Z and Millenials have adapted very quickly to social networks and the gaming that is developing within them. Millenials use them not only for work but also for leisure, an experience that, apart from the statistics and surveys that I point out, I observe on a daily basis from my personal experience. On the other hand, the members of the so-called Generation Z not only spend a large part of their free time playing video games, but many of them do so in a proportion of 80%, 8 out of 10! And in good company.
Widespread dissemination of gambling does not mean losing our eating habits. 
What is surprising about this study is the regularity with which not only Millennials but also Generation X, a generation that because of their age has generally been excluded from this type of analysis, play games, as if to corroborate the new direction that video games are taking today. Reserving video games only for the very young has become a metropolitan legend!
And let's not talk about the Baby Boomers, those we could euphemistically call today our beloved grandparents, in which case the difference is greater, but still represents a significant 42%! This is not a statistic to go unnoticed as they spend almost half of their leisure time playing games.
These statistics further widen the spectrum of gaming in what has long been called the generation gap, the video games industry is helping to eliminate it and to establish a link between one generation and another, so we could safely say that most people between the ages of 10 and 65 are gamers, albeit to different extents and in different proportions.
Another part of the study highlights that our children (Generation Z) spend more than an hour a day on average playing video games. Without neglecting their eating habits.
It is evident that for most users, video games are an oasis of peace in the daily routine regardless of their age or generational frame, including their own real competition with its logical stress load.
Just like any other professional athlete trains before competing, professional gamers spend several hours playing games as a mere entertainment not only to keep fit but also to disconnect from the stress and burdens of everyday life.
About Giampaolo Rossi.
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