I think it is our responsibility as gamers to make sure that we play fair, play courteous, and play to have fun. It is a game after all. That said, we all have stories of playing "that ******* guy" or "that bratty kid."

Losing at a game is ok, as long as both players are having fun. Everyone needs to remember that.

Red 39 checking in, 40 in August. The guys I play with are in their late 20's.

I have no issues playing with anyone so long as they act maturely.

Same here 40 in July

Wow, I'm actually surprised by the average age of players here. I'm from Poland and in my gaming group most people are in their middle-twenties (say, 22-27), me myself being 24. This seem to be the case in other groups around the country, with only a few players exceeding 30th year of life. We actually have more teenage players. Out of 40+ people attending our National Championship I belive no more than 10 were older than 30 and obut the same amount of teenagers were present.

I personally don't mind playing with younger players (nor older ones). The thing about X-wing is (compared to other wargaming communities) it that it's very sportsmanship and player-friendly environment - I have yet to meet an X-wing opponent who's rude, cheats or generally mean.

Ah, I'm just 16. But soon will be one year older!

I'm 54 (55 on the 21st) and I'm the old man of my gaming group. The rest of the people in my group are about half my age or younger. I don't mind playing the younger folks as long as they act mature when they play.

27 years old here. Pretty much everyone in my gaming group is around that age vicinity. X-wing is actually the first miniatures wargame that I've gotten into after years of playing D&D and other table-top RPGs in addition to board wargames (Axis & Allies, Twilight Imperium etc.)

This game bit me pretty hard! I played two matches with my friend's base set and went out and dropped $100 on models the very next day! Now I've spent a lot more than that... Luckily I have a room mate that love the game too so I get to play 3-4 times a week.

Cool. Interesting to see all the variations and different experiences everyone has had with players.

I by no means would consider this a "hardcore" game either, thus the quotes I used around the phrase. But it does require (at least for me) traveling to my LGS and tourneys where I interact with people outside of my family/friends to play the game.

my experience for gaming in general is, that it is easiest to play with people who can enjoy a game even when loosing.

That doesn't mean, you can't play competitively, but the win shouldn't be the only positive motivation to play.

Many of the named issues can be reduced to that, aside perhaps from having missed basic manners 101.

Im the youngest at my LGS that plays i believe, Majority of the guys are from late 20's to maybe early 40's.

Im 20 btw = P

I'm 49 but our club range from 8 to 54

I'm 26, I started playing Magic at 15, and I started playing miniature games with 40k around 19. I love X-Wing so much I've dropped all other miniature games!

I'm 61. I also have to disagree with the oft repeated comment that the youngsters are the future. Money is one of the reasons, but not the main one, I consider myself a casual X-Wing player but it has already cost me £200+ and of course I still have Imperial Aces and Wave 4 to come! The main reason though is that kids are just not interested in games the way they were, and by that of course I mean non computer games and to be honest recent research also nudges them out of that genre.

It is the Old Guard who keep the manufacturers happy in the main, I myself can only rely on two people for games once every so often, yet I have started four new 'periods' in the past two years and spent well over £1000 on them so far.

I have tried for decades to bring in young people and failed miserably, and believe me I have tried every avenue. Look around the table, look around at your next show or exhibition, you won't see a generation in waiting.

I don't know old guy, I do think your right about the computer age, however i think it will eventually flatten out and get normalized and people will actually want face to face entertainment again. ether that or the games get so good that people start living in their 3D virtual world.. In that case were all doomed!!!

Gold 38 signing in. My play group is late 30's to early 40's co workers, with one who is 25. We all enjoy playing the game and get our inner geeks on when we play.

I've played RPG's, written adventures and done convention play, played MtG, but its has only been in the last 2 years, where I set up a beer and boardgames club with my co workers, that x-wing came in and really cemented us as a group.

Star Wars is a generational thing and the "force" is stronger in some than others.

My fondest Star Wars memory was attending Return of the Jedi at a theatre in downtown Toronto and seeing the full sized, card board poster of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. I was 8 at the time. Was just amazed at the whole experience. It really stuck with me.

Over here in blighty.

Most players I know are between late 20's to late 30's

That's the crowd I run into as well, but I would expand it to late 40's.

I'll be 50 next year. If I'm twice as old I'm twice as good right? There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.

41th Imperial Fighter Wing pilot here. I'll take some time to get into Fel's Saber squadron.

I'm 61. I also have to disagree with the oft repeated comment that the youngsters are the future. Money is one of the reasons, but not the main one, I consider myself a casual X-Wing player but it has already cost me £200+ and of course I still have Imperial Aces and Wave 4 to come! The main reason though is that kids are just not interested in games the way they were, and by that of course I mean non computer games and to be honest recent research also nudges them out of that genre.

It is the Old Guard who keep the manufacturers happy in the main, I myself can only rely on two people for games once every so often, yet I have started four new 'periods' in the past two years and spent well over £1000 on them so far.

I have tried for decades to bring in young people and failed miserably, and believe me I have tried every avenue. Look around the table, look around at your next show or exhibition, you won't see a generation in waiting.

It might depend on where you play. I am 27, and I have four younger brothers. One is in third grade, one just enetered high school, and two are out of college, and the youngest three have all become hooked on the game to various degrees due to my efforts. I have also hooked several of my in-laws who are teenage and below, so we have a fairly young playing community around here.

I also have a three year-old daughter who--no joke--plays with me all the time. She gets to count out shields before we play, assign tokens (at my direction) and roll the dice for attack and defense. She loves it. "Dark Vader" is her favorite. My son is only two months old, but I intend to start him as soon as possible.

Come to the dark side...and start young!

I'm 61. I also have to disagree with the oft repeated comment that the youngsters are the future. Money is one of the reasons, but not the main one, I consider myself a casual X-Wing player but it has already cost me £200+ and of course I still have Imperial Aces and Wave 4 to come! The main reason though is that kids are just not interested in games the way they were, and by that of course I mean non computer games and to be honest recent research also nudges them out of that genre.

It is the Old Guard who keep the manufacturers happy in the main, I myself can only rely on two people for games once every so often, yet I have started four new 'periods' in the past two years and spent well over £1000 on them so far.

I have tried for decades to bring in young people and failed miserably, and believe me I have tried every avenue. Look around the table, look around at your next show or exhibition, you won't see a generation in waiting.

The age of mobile phones/internet/video games, has decayed the attention spans of most kids to the point that boardgames are too hard for them to keep focus on.

Heck I hardly even see kids playing outside anymore, let alone sitting down with other people to focus on a board game. On my parent's block, there's a ton of families with children, but the kids are never outside playing. When I was growing up in that neighborhood, between the months of March - November (the winter months tended to keep us inside more) there'd be kids running all over the place...imagination is dead, kids have to have ideas and 'fun' fed to them now.

The decay of children's interest in gaming is a mixed bag, on one hand we have less younglings melting down and making game environments unpleasant (they tend to stick to WoW or Xbox Live thankfully), on the other hand they usually will grow up to not play hobby games so our pool of players will shrink.

I love topics like this, I'm 40 and still get excited about new games. Got a load of X-Wing bits arriving this week and planning a weekend of gaming heaven, just got to tell the girlfriend!

I'm 61. I also have to disagree with the oft repeated comment that the youngsters are the future. Money is one of the reasons, but not the main one, I consider myself a casual X-Wing player but it has already cost me £200+ and of course I still have Imperial Aces and Wave 4 to come! The main reason though is that kids are just not interested in games the way they were, and by that of course I mean non computer games and to be honest recent research also nudges them out of that genre.

It is the Old Guard who keep the manufacturers happy in the main, I myself can only rely on two people for games once every so often, yet I have started four new 'periods' in the past two years and spent well over £1000 on them so far.

I have tried for decades to bring in young people and failed miserably, and believe me I have tried every avenue. Look around the table, look around at your next show or exhibition, you won't see a generation in waiting.

The age of mobile phones/internet/video games, has decayed the attention spans of most kids to the point that boardgames are too hard for them to keep focus on.

Heck I hardly even see kids playing outside anymore, let alone sitting down with other people to focus on a board game. On my parent's block, there's a ton of families with children, but the kids are never outside playing. When I was growing up in that neighborhood, between the months of March - November (the winter months tended to keep us inside more) there'd be kids running all over the place...imagination is dead, kids have to have ideas and 'fun' fed to them now.

The decay of children's interest in gaming is a mixed bag, on one hand we have less younglings melting down and making game environments unpleasant (they tend to stick to WoW or Xbox Live thankfully), on the other hand they usually will grow up to not play hobby games so our pool of players will shrink.

As someone who has spent the last 15 years working with youth, I see things very differently.

While electronic games have a larger market share, we have the best crop of interesting and unique board games we have ever had. Magic, Dominion, Lords of Waterdeep - these are great games for getting young people into the gaming community.

The last Xwing tournament I played featured mostly 20s and up, but there were two different Magic tournaments going on (one looked specifically targeted at the under-18 crowd). All told, there were probably about 60 people in the building, engaged in face-to-face, community gaming. No cursing over Xbox Live, no Angry Birds.

While my area may not be representative of the great community, it is a mistake to believe there isn't an entire generation out there that wants more than what video games can offer. I love RPGs and have spent hundreds of hours in Skyrim, but my first taste of a table top rpg blew it out of the water.

We need to keep offering these experiences and opportunities to as many young people as we can, while they may not be able to fund our games at the moment, they are literally the future of gaming.

I think that might be true that the more occasional gaming community will be lost. Video games provide the instant gratification that so much of current society demands. Look at the constant vomit of "updates" that users of social media like Facebook and Twitter shower the world with daily.

Dont get me wrong, I love video games and I play almost daily, and it is because of Facebook that my wife and I were able to reconnect 10 years after we had dated back in high school. I am all for the "Teching" of society, but I am not the only one who has taken a balanced approach to virtual and face to face interaction. Digital will never replace the real.

Jack Vale recently did a Social Media Experiment on Youtube that some of you might find interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_0s1TYpJU&list=PLk98MRP1DURi6j9jR-VYIxsJDP9-3pGY3

And like Bohrdumb said, the face to face, roll the dice and play some cards type games are phenominal in the current market. Never have we seen such quality and volume of exceptional games on the market than we have now. It is gamers like us who will pass the torch to the up and coming generations of gamers.

How do we compete with the "ADD Generation?"

We make sure that when we are introducing people to our hobbies, we make sure that it is an experience that they will remember and treasure and will want to come back for more.

The Essoteric Order Of Gamers has an article that sums up what Im taking about very well and I think is worth the read:

http://www.orderofgamers.com/game-session-eog-style

If we want to keep our hobby alive we need to game so that everyone at the table is having fun!

I must just be an old cynic, the future of gaming and I am talking mainly miniatures here I agree is in the hands of the 'yoof' of today, but yes, the 20 somethings, not 'kids', not enough to matter at least. My own experience is mainly in the realm of historical miniatures and I have watched the hobby change from huge armies and complicated rules down to today's crop of smaller, 'fun' games, fighting Waterloo with four men, a dog, and getting a result in 45 minutes. I have picked up some of these games and for the most part enjoy the ones I have chosen, but can I get local kids interested, no, god, even the adults look on me as a crazie.

I have quite literally put the white flag up trying to introduce new blood, and now take my gaming as it comes. But good luck to you who keep trying.

Old Guy - I hear what you're saying. I just think it's a process to get people into niche games like historical miniatures. I think the process starts young. Granted, if you don't have kids, or work with kids...inviting them into your basement to play may not go over well.

But the 20somethings go their start somewhere and may eventually get into deeper, more complex games. Just remember that the underlying core is to introduce kids to stuff we love and hope they see the joy and excitement we derive from them.

As a result, I'm working on a Sesame v Thomas the Tank miniatures wargame.

Take it for what it's worth as I've not had the magical Google Analytics that determine age of visitors on for all that long (a month-ish), but if site traffic to TheMetalBikini.com is any indicator, the biggest demo for X-Wing, or at least those who seek out more info or whatever, is the 25-34 demo. 35-44 is a relatively close second, 18-24 is an extremely distant 3rd, and 45-54 is just a touch behind the the 18-24 crowd.

Now again, this isn't necessarily indicative of the actual players of X-Wing, not saying it is, etc., etc. Just thought it was interesting that the collective observations of this thread's participants more or less mirror what I see on the site.

Oh, and I just turned 40 by the way.

I am younger than most everyone here then, I guess. The tactical war gaming genre has just always appealed to me.