You know what I discovered at some point during the past 10 years? Gaming anxiety is a thing. 

I'd spend hours scrolling through my Steam library, palms sweaty and heart palpitating, looking for something to even just launch and never finding it. I only wanted to have some fun — and the fruitless searching ratcheted up the anxiety. I'm completely noncompetitive and don't care if I even make it through a tutorial, so it wasn't performance anxiety. 

I eventually broke through, completely accidentally, by changing the types of games I played. I stopped searching for the genres I played only on the PC, with a keyboard and mouse, and opened up to games I could play with a controller.

My longest sessions are now on my handheld consoles, phones and tablets, because as I get older, sitting at my desk for long periods has become uncomfortable. A controller doesn't tether me to a PC or require a flat surface, so I can sit anywhere — usually someplace squishy and comfy.

Aging changes almost every aspect of our physiology and psychology: vision, hearing, motor control, muscle weakness, cognition, memory and stamina. Issues that had been minor can become real roadblocks to your movement, reaction times and physical capabilities.

I haven't completely given up PC gaming, but I enjoy it a lot less now that I've got a twitchy forefinger and shaky hands, which leads to accidental double-clicks, inability to place the cursor exactly where I need it and having to strike a key more than once. Throw in vision degradation, constant tinnitus and muscle weakness, plus anxiety. As you age, you can develop new phobias and anxieties, which can be a problem for gaming.

"There are changes in mobility, dexterity, eyesight and hearing," says Niall White, principal gaming design and innovation engineer at gear-maker Logitech G (and 52-year-old Civilization 7 player), speaking to me about aging gamers. "It's also a constant change, so the solution needs to change as you go. While accessibility in gaming has improved a lot, I would say aging is not often a major consideration." 

I've seen this firsthand: My father built his own PCs for 25 years, but by his mid-80s, he couldn't remember how to turn one on.

Aging doesn't affect everyone in the same way. Gaming streamer GrndPaGaming is in his 70s and has multiple health issues, but millions of followers, and damned if he isn't still a terrific sniper. And sniping is hard: It requires steady hands, good vision and mental acuity.

According to a 2025 report (PDF) from the Entertainment Software Association, aging populations are still gaming a lot. More than half of Gen X, almost half of Boomers and more than 1 in 3 of the Silent Generation (aged 80 and up) play weekly. Couple that with AARP research (PDF) showing roughly 66% of gamers have reported experiencing at least one symptom of age-related decline in mobility, vision or cognition, and that's a sizable number of people dealing with these issues.

I've tested a ton of different gaming devices and now play games I feel are best suited for each: puzzles like Pangram on my phone; point-and-click adventures and other touch-friendly games that need a bigger screen like The Room or Balatro on my tablet; easy roguelites (games with randomly generated play and permadeath) and other controller-optimized games like Hades 2 and Have a Nice Death on my handheld console or Xbox; and games with detailed graphics and mouse-optimized motion like the Doom series and Clair Obscur on PC. 

I've got enough variety to match my mood and capabilities at any time, and that means more play. More fun.

Hardware matters. No game is fun if you have to suffer with twitchy controls, overcomplicated design, lag and poor performance. A too-small or too-dim display can make it difficult to read text, or impossible to see important objects or landmarks. Short battery life on a handheld can tether you to a location unless your session lengths are defined by "till my battery dies or I have to pee, whichever comes first."

Right on the boundary between Boomer and Gen X'er, I've been dealing with all of this. I've also got three-plus decades of hardware and software testing to underpin what I think works and doesn't work. 

Are you ready to adapt your gameplay?

My tendency to overthink, coupled with access to a lot of different hardware, has made me conscious of how I've been adapting to changes in my vision and motor control. It started in my mid-50s, though not all of this is exclusive to aging. Some people deal with these issues throughout their lives. My tinnitus is actually a side effect of a medication I take, which is age-independent.

There's a lot of research and product development for severe issues, but less for gradual declines due to aging and the way we respond to these changes. As gamers age, they have to start adapting — but may not know how.

Kaitlyn Jones, gaming accessibility lead at Microsoft's Xbox unit, tells me that the main difference between younger players with disabilities and those experiencing the effects of aging is that the former have been navigating "systems that weren't built for them" for a lot longer. There are formal communities and events for them, like AbleGamers and Logitech's Adaptive Esports Tournaments, while older gamers tend to come together in more informal networks on sites like Reddit, Facebook and Discord. 

People with major accessibility challenges have learned to find, experiment with and customize solutions for specific games or situations, according to Jones. 

"When these changes come gradually with age, it can feel different," Jones says. "Assumptions like, 'Maybe I'm not as good at this anymore,' are surfaced instead of, 'There's probably a setting that could help.'"

Most studies on gaming and aging are limited, though. There are a lot on how particular types of games — generally word and number games — help maximize cognitive resilience as you age. But the main reason we play games is to be entertained, and we adapt our gaming to keep that fun going.

AARP Senior Research Adviser Brittne Kakulla confirmed this in recent research. 

"The No. 1 reason older adults game is for fun," Kakulla tells me. "But for older adults, there are some motivations that are unique to them that you don't see in younger gamers. One is game for relaxation. About two-thirds do that. And then also gaming to stay mentally sharp. That's about 60%."

In some ways, though, these conclusions may end up reflecting the practical considerations of research: Crosswords and sudoku puzzles are easy to use for studies and run well on phones, while a combo puzzle and roguelite like Blue Prince is not and does not. There's no data yet on whether strategy games like Civilization or StarCraft II might be even better brain exercises. And if that's what you like to play, they're certainly a lot more fun. 

Nor have I seen anyone posit that games requiring a modest amount of nimble fingering might help improve control and dexterity. 

"Really interesting to observe that gaming is a fun way of retraining muscles that may have been lost due to stroke, temporary paralysis or otherwise," says Rosie Frost, head of design for accessibility for Logitech. "Observationally, we have also seen that console gaming can help build hand muscles that may improve handwriting for young children." 

You don't necessarily have to give up the games you love if you run into muscle control or stamina problems. You may just have to accept that your capabilities have changed and then adapt, much as athletes do once they're out of their 20s and slowing down physically.

The experiences that shape our gaming habits later in life — what we'll want to continue playing, what we play on and who we want to play with — can start and end in vastly different places, another thing that's hard for research to capture. 

"I've been playing video games since I was 2, back when I used to stand on milk crates to play games at the gas station," 48-year-old CNET contributor Oscar Gonzalez tells me. He grew up with consoles, surrounded by the NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, N64 and more. 

He adds, almost as an afterthought, "Well, my mom hung out at the arcades when she was pregnant with me, so it's all her fault. She was playing Call of Duty online when she was 55." 

I'm the same age as his mother, and I didn't even know computer games existed until midway through college, when I played my first text adventure on a mainframe. When my father took up PC gaming sometime in the '80s, I didn't even find out until years later. It was never something we shared. 

Which games work best for you?

Some of the pains that respondents in the 2024 AARP survey blame on game design may at least partly result from their hardware choices, which drive which games they play.

"Games or devices that feel complex or intimidating — even if that perception isn't entirely accurate — can push players away, especially those with disabilities. Familiarity, on the other hand, plays a big role in what feels approachable and draws players toward certain platforms or games," Jones says. "Ultimately, it really comes down to the individual and what feels easiest and most enjoyable for them."

Many aging gamers prefer mobile games because they already use their phone daily. But phones have small screens and can be difficult to hold steady. For me, they're more frustrating to use every year as I fat-finger my way toward maturity.

The data on preferred devices is conflicting. AARP's study shows that mobile devices are the most common platforms for gaming, but PCs don't lag by much. On the other hand, ESA's 2025 global survey shows mobile is well ahead of PCs for over-55 gamers. Those who've used a PC throughout their adult lives may prefer those for gaming.

Both platforms limit the types of games you can choose from. Poor vision plus small screens drive a lot of people toward word and number games on mobile. But if you're playing on a phone and can't read the small text, try blaming the small screen rather than the game. 

Per AARP's study, the most popular platform for "active" gaming remains the Nintendo Wii, circa 2006, thanks to its motion controls. But the Wii was discontinued 13 years ago, and the Wii Mini five years ago, so it won't remain a viable option much longer, despite continuing interest (even among younger gamers like Gen Z CNET Writer Meara Isenberg). 

If you experience intermittent vision or hand shake, some days you may feel like a competent sniper and other days not so much; aim can be sensitive to vision, hand steadiness (which can defeat even the best muscle memory) and, in some cases, hearing. You can also make use of accessibility settings built into some gaming hardware. It's about finding what works for you.

Game design matters too, and sometimes there's a low-tech solution.

"I really need to have my glasses on. I'm not blind without them, but my eyes have to really strain to read certain text," says Gonzalez, who acknowledges that his need for glasses could stem from playing games on a monitor for so many years. "Glasses are just a quicker way to go, since messing with text can alter the game experience. Developers usually take into account how the default text looks in a game, so making it bigger can just throw things off."  

Having a variety of game types to choose from may help. Some days, or at specific times of the day, my brain fog lifts, and I get my dopamine hit from solving complex puzzle games. At night, when I'm groggy from medication, I'm surprisingly best at roguelites because my hands switch to autopilot without my brain constantly trying to wrest control. 

Frustration is the enemy. I know, because my gravestone will read, "Here lies Lori. She rage quit." 

What gaming device feels right?

Just as there's no average gamer, there's no monolithic "aging gamer." Quantic Foundry's gamer motivation model (PDF) is based on a huge data set that breaks gamers into six types, and it applies to the over-50s as much as it does to the under-50s. The simplest conclusion is that we — the aging folks — should be gaming on devices that offer the widest variety of games and ways to play them, with the most accessory support and functional, accessible designs.

While there are a lot of choices out there, they all have characteristics that are, at the very least, frustrating and annoying for older gamers.

Phones have the advantage of ubiquity and the ability to take them anywhere (even into a bathroom, unlike a handheld, which is a little less stealthy). They have a decent selection of games, but aside from puzzle and word, I feel like they're predominantly aimed at kids through 20-somethings on the iPhone or buried in the app and ad clutter of the Google Play Store. There are also active AR games, like Pokemon Go and Pikmin Bloom, which not only get you moving but also get you outdoors.

Many phone and tablet games, however, only support swiping, tapping and other gestures. I think some game developers have adapted cleverly to that constraint, but it can get frustrating if you fat-finger. While you can sometimes connect keyboards, mice, headsets, monitors and controllers — like Backbones and Razer Kishis — for alternative input and larger screens, that can be awkward, unreliable and not necessarily supported by all games. Plus, accessorizing tethers you to a desk or table, and even the big screens are small.

Tablets have larger screens, which improves touch input. But they too suffer like phones, notably for game selection and accessorizing.

Consoles like the PlayStation and Xbox offer more game variety, and if you've played console games for a while, you've probably got a decent library. Plus, there's a large selection of games as well as subscription services, which, while expensive, you can use for a month to try before you buy. There are also a lot of controller and headset choices.

On the other hand, consoles are designed to be plopped next to a TV or monitor, which means big screens but limits on where you can play. They don't pose as much of a "too many things to do before you can play" problem as desktops and laptops (like OS updates, freeing up memory, game updates and more), but you can face some.

Windows PCs and laptops are popular and offer the widest range of games, accessories and screen sizes, though you're again stuck in a specific location or need a flat surface. Even the most comfortable chairs aren't always comfortable for lengthy sessions. At least with a console, you can recline on a sofa.

If you experience cognitive or memory glitches, a lack of patience or aren't comfortable troubleshooting problems, Windows can torpedo your fun. I've found MacOS to be less frustrating, but that's because it has a smaller selection of games and fewer settings choices for accessories.

VR may eventually become the active gaming platform of choice. Its immersive video is a great match for simulations, flythroughs and sports. Diopter controls on the lenses let you adjust the focus to adapt to your vision, as long as it's not too extreme. The hand controllers can be a more comfortable way for you to play and navigate, and may be less sensitive to hand tremors than mice or joysticks. 

But I don't think VR's quite there yet for a lot of older folks or others with any sort of stamina, weakness or balance problems — and balance is a biggie as we age. Just the thought of wearing a headset and focusing on screens close to my eyes for more than 30 minutes makes my head ache.

While there are ways for game designers to mitigate potential motion sickness, stamina and balance pitfalls in-game, there just aren't enough VR games for standalone headsets like Meta's Quest models, especially those that address these types of health-related blocks. VR headsets that work in conjunction with a PC or PlayStation offer more choice, but if you have any motor issues, from balance to simply sheer klutziness, you have to opt for a wireless headset. Cables pose a significant trip-and-fall hazard — take it from someone who's had a USB cable trip-and-fall fracture.  

Cloud gaming on services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, Nvidia GeForce Now, Amazon Luna and more can increase your game selection on whatever hardware you choose. But subscriptions can get expensive, and quality depends on your connection.

My choice for best gaming device

This brings me to my ultimate conclusion: Handhelds are the best gaming solution for able-bodied gamers who are becoming less able over time. 

You can play them anywhere, they have midsize screens, and because the controllers are connected, there's little to no wake-to-game time. You can roll over in bed, pick it up and start playing before you get up or go to sleep. 

Gonzalez owns an Xbox, PS5, Switch and PC, but primarily plays PC games on handheld consoles. 

"I choose based on the game I want to play. I can play on pretty much any console or PC game on handheld, so they all can be played in bed," he says.

If the screen is too small for a particular game, you can dock it or directly connect it to a larger display. Handhelds also support a nice selection of accessories, including controllers. Their grips make them much easier to hold compared with a phone. And the handheld consoles that are dedicated to gaming — the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck — don't require much technical savvy or troubleshooting.

AARP's 2024 survey (PDF) and sales say the Nintendo Switch is the most popular of these, not just among older gamers, but overall. And given its popularity across the age divide, that will likely continue as current adults age into seniorhood. 

Switch games include franchises that have been around forever — Super Mario Bros. turned 40 this year — and the nostalgia-plus-fun factor looms large. Its follow-up, the Switch 2, is too new to have been factored into any surveys yet, and its larger 7.9-inch screen makes a big difference. 

Screen technology can matter a lot, too, and handhelds cover the gamut. We start to lose contrast sensitivity (perception of bright versus dark) at 40, which can make it difficult to differentiate elements from one another or from the background. OLED-based screens have the highest contrast because they can render perfect blacks. But they're not always great at rendering shades of gray in the darkest areas, while IPS screens are better at it. 

I also find HDR helpful beyond just aesthetics. Even if your game doesn't support it, consoles and Windows can automatically map the tonal range to the broader range of the display, which makes things easier to see. 

What's striking is that Valve's veteran Steam Decks didn't even register in that AARP survey. This is an odd disconnect: The Deck is essentially the gaming handheld for people who want to play PC games but don't want the hassle of Windows. It plays any game you buy from Steam's online store, and there's an app for GeForce Now to play cloud games from additional stores. 

Another class of handhelds isn't nearly as popular and didn't register on the survey. Devices like the Logitech G Cloud and Ayn's Thor and Odin lines run Android games and cloud games. They use the same screen-with-grips-on-the-sides design as most other handhelds, but the Thor has a clamshell flip-up screen with the controller beneath it that looks a little too fumble-friendly to me. They do seem more premium than a lot of competitors, including one with an OLED screen, but the displays aren't very large.

So, about Windows handhelds

I'm a huge fan of the Deck, the Lenovo Legion Go S and other potential Deck-alikes that also run SteamOS for games I play with a controller.

But I'm partial to the Windows handhelds. You have multiple choices, so you can find one with a layout and feel that suits you best. There's a variety of screen sizes, including the largest and best available: The Legion Go 2's 8.8-inch OLED screen offers high contrast with HDR support, making game elements in dark areas more visible. The ROG Xbox Ally models have huge grips with responsive controls.

Because Windows is a complete operating system, you're not limited to one store launcher and can buy games from a multitude of game stores, like Epic Games Store, Steam, Microsoft and more. 

One of the most important advantages is the plethora of accessory options, including controllers designed with accessibility in mind. The operating system has a variety of accessibility features, such as a screen reader that works beyond menus in-game, and it can run third-party applications, so you can use your favorite assistive software. 

The right accessories can make a big difference in ways you may not have thought of. A headset that lets you adjust equalization settings can deemphasize frequencies for unimportant sounds and increase the loudness of frequencies you need to hear. 

Accessories marketed for people with disabilities may suit you as well. The Proteus gaming controller, made in partnership with Xbox, lets you lay out modules so you can use it comfortably with a single hand, but the modules are standard controls like ABXY buttons and joysticks. Modular controllers like Turtle Beach's Victrix Pro BFG feature a two-handed design, but you can flip the orientation and swap the sticks. A lot of controllers let you change joystick toppers for different textures. My skin has gotten drier over the years, and my grip frequently feels slippery. Adding a rubberized texture helps.

Pay attention to keyboard switch types — linear, tactile, clicky, membrane, magnetic — and actuation force specs. I find linear switches, which have no perceptible actuation point (the point at which the keypress registers), a little harder to control than tactile or clicky, and I like the audible feedback of the latter. 

There are circumstances that can drive you to stop playing a particular type of game. When I first began working with him, Gonzalez was a fiend for fighting games. He ended up quitting them for two common reasons: free time and reaction time.

"I pretty much had to drop them for the reason I mentioned earlier about grinding out those hours just to get a little better, and I could tell my reaction time has slowed," Gonzalez says. "When it comes to fighting games, people do age out of them competitively. It's very rare to find any competitive fighting game player over the age of 35." 

If you're feeling crunched, you have three reasonable choices: power through the frustration (and potentially lose enjoyment from the game); have multiple genres of games to select from as alternatives; or use accessories with settings you can adjust to compensate. The first strikes me as undesirable, while the latter two vary significantly by the platform you game on. 

Low input lag is essential for competitive gamers, and when your reflexes aren't great, it's hard to compensate, and you miss a lot of shots or have to hit the control multiple times. Small frustrations add up fast.

Remapping keys, creating macros and rebinding controller buttons may seem confusing, especially as you become less capable of wrapping your head around it, but if you can change even one awkward input, it may give you motivation to try more.

"Even standard Xbox Wireless Controllers support simple remapping, so players can move buttons to suit their needs without any additional purchases," Jones says. "We also support mapping controller inputs to mouse and keyboard — for players who find controller form factors to be more accessible but want to navigate Windows and their gaming experiences without a mouse and keyboard in the mix."

For PCs, Jones points out Windows accessibility settings that include mouse and input customization, cursor speed adjustments and full voice access so you don't have to use a mouse at all.

Microsoft's AI tools could eventually help, too. 

"AI can operate in the background to do things like interpreting natural language commands and translating them into in-game actions like 'pick up the item,'" Jones says.

There are no perfect runs

Windows handhelds may be my favorite, but they're far from perfect. There are no great choices when you're not in game-perfect shape, only trade-offs.

My pet peeve du jour: A lot of gaming gear has switched to black-on-black labeling for buttons and ports. Do you know how hard it is to figure out which of the four menu buttons is the one you need, especially when you can never remember which is which and even after searching for an angle that makes the shiny part a little reflective, you still can't read the labels? Lookin' at you, Legion Go 2.

These devices can play games that run on Windows, but a handheld may not run them as well, and games that require a discrete graphics processor won't find one in these devices. 

Steam and Windows games are intended to run on a wide range of hardware, so you're not guaranteed a great experience. Both have badging programs to indicate whether a game will run well on their respective devices, but I've found my idea of "well" doesn't always match theirs.

Take the Legion Go 2. It has a great screen, but it also bristles with controls because it's overdesigned, meant to suit too many gaming styles. If you experience technology anxiety, all those buttons can get intimidating, you may not find a comfortable place to hold it, or it may become difficult to remember what the bindings are. The Legion Go S has simpler grips, but its screen isn't as large or as good, plus it uses a lesser processor, so a lot of graphics-heavy games don't play as well.

By contrast, Switch games are designed to run on the Switch and take its limitations into account. 

Windows handhelds tend to be constructed well with responsive controls, but they're not designed solely for gaming. That means they can double as a regular, though really small, computer, but you've also got a gaming device with all the baggage of Windows and a veneer of gaming. 

Windows needs a minimum of 16GB of RAM to run, and this makes it more expensive than it would otherwise be. Setup treats it like a laptop, so it tries to sell you Microsoft 365. You can roll over in bed and pick it up, but rather than jumping into a game, you have a pretty good chance of jumping into a system update — sometimes a long one. 

This doesn't seem likely to change. Microsoft's strategy for the next Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, is to run Windows games. In theory, it's a great idea, and it's more cost-effective for Microsoft to continue trudging toward the one-size-fits-all operating system. But we've seen how it's been executed in the handhelds.

Pricing considerations

Sadly, this is a terrible time to buy almost any platform. Current AI-fueled and, to a lesser extent, tariff-induced, component supply and price hikes add a layer of complication to switching gaming platforms. 

Lenovo's having supply chain issues with the Legion Go 2, and it's been almost continuously out of stock since preorders began in September. On Amazon, the price of the top-end ROG Xbox Ally X has risen from $1,000 at launch to $1,240, and the lower-end model from $600 to $700. 

It's not just about rising prices. Memory for phones, laptops and desktops is scarce thanks to manufacturers committing their already limited supplies to data center buildouts dedicated to AI, and computer prices aren't expected to drop for years. 

Since Windows handhelds are essentially cheap laptops, they're sensitive to similar pressures. AMD and Nvidia supply most of the chips in handhelds. Earlier this year, Intel teased a potential gaming handheld powered by its chips, likely running Windows, but it's not here yet.

The Steam Deck is in dire need of an upgrade. Valve announced its new Steam Machine, effectively a console for playing Steam games and the Steam Frame VR headset, but both have been delayed, and pricing will be subject to the same market forces as everything else.

Stick to your guns

Thanks to facing my anxiety and perpetual anhedonia, I was in some ways prepared for the tremors, the degrading vision and all the rest. I've learned to accept that fun takes work, but it's worth it.

But just because you're experiencing age-related deterioration doesn't mean you have to run into Wordle's arms. One particular change won't necessarily affect your gaming — for instance, if your hearing starts to go, it won't affect gameplay if there's only background music and no audio cues.

For the rest, there are some promising solutions on the horizon. 

"Haptics is an emerging technology for us, so this year we'll explore how this might be able to support users with impaired vision, hearing loss and neurodiversity as well as tremors and hand mobility," says Logitech's Frost. She adds that Logitech is looking at ways to use 3D printable add-ons with its SIM racing wheel, similar to how they work with its Pebble mouse, for single-handed operation or to support different hand angles. And there's more to come.

Your tastes may change as you get older, encouraging you to try new game genres you might never have considered before. But don't let fear or frustration force you to give up something you love. It may be a process of adaptation and discovery, but ultimately, it's still about fun.

Visual Designer | Zooey Liao

Art Director | Jeffrey Hazelwood

Creative Director | Viva Tung

Video Host/Editor | JD Christison

Camera Operator | Owen Poole

Project Manager | Danielle Ramirez

Editor | Corinne Reichert

Director of Content | Jonathan Skillings