Integrating Artificial Intelligence as Assistive Technology for Older Adult Gamers: A Pilot Study

TL;DR

This pilot study explores how AI can enhance gaming experiences for older adults by understanding their preferences, challenges, and perceptions, aiming to inform age-inclusive AI-supported game design.

Contribution

The paper presents an iterative survey design process and preliminary findings on older adults' gaming challenges and perceptions of AI, guiding future inclusive game development.

Findings

Usability issues are key obstacles for older gamers.

Older adults see practical benefits of AI but have concerns about autonomy.

Preliminary data informs age-inclusive AI game design.

Abstract

With respect to digital games, older adults are a demographic that is often underserved due to an industry-wide focus on younger audiences' preferences and skill sets. Meanwhile, as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to expand into everyday technologies, its assistive capabilities have been recognized, suggesting its potential in improving the gaming experience for older gamers. To study this potential, we iteratively developed a pilot survey aimed at understanding older adult gamers' current gameplay preference, challenges they are facing, and their perspectives of AI usage in gaming. This article contributes an overview of our iterative survey-design workflow, and pilot results from 39 participants. During each iteration, we analyzed the survey's efficacy and adjusted the content, language, and format to better capture meaningful data, and was able to create a refined survey for a larger, more representative future parent study. At the same time, preliminary findings suggest that for older adult gamers, usability issues in gaming remain key obstacles, while this demographic's perceptions of AI are shaped by both its practical benefits and concerns about autonomy and complexity. These findings also offer early insights for the design of age-inclusive, AI-supported gaming experiences.