How old is the crowd that plays subscription-based MMORPGs these days? (FFXIV)

[Seijuro]

I recently got a friend into FFXIV. He loves it, but told me his free company feels like it's made up of kids. Which is strange because I'm under the impression that most people I meet in the game are "older" gamers (like 25 to 30 and older, we ourselves are in our late 30ies), and that kids and the younger audience in general doesn't play MMOs anymore, especially one with a subscription model.
Purely anecdotal I know.
But the fact is that there are very few games left where you have to pay a monthly sub (WoW and FFXIV being the biggest), and many newer MMOs (and games in general) have adopted a f2p style model, which is more likely to draw young gamers in I'm sure? How old are players of sub-based MMORPGs?

 

[Kida]

Not many people I've talked to in FFXIV have been younger than late-teens/early 20s with most being late 20s or older.

I'm 30 and the crowd I play with range from 25-40. I can only remember encountering obvious kids a couple of times and I've been playing XIV since 2011.

 

[Cheezeman3000]

Over 30 here and I play XIV off and on to keep up with the story. I can't play it as much as I'd be able to if I was in my teens, but I can still raid with the best of em.

 

[Xeonidus]

A group of my friends are all playing WoW classic. Oldest are mid 30s and youngest, my cousin, is mid 20s. I don't have time personally but seems like a good range to me. Of course, classic WoW may well have a slightly different audience compared to FFXIV.

 

[Number45]

My perspective may be skewed as I'm part of a WoW guild that stretches back to vanilla, but it definitely seems more like an older crowd. Even when I PUG I'm pretty sure the people I group with (based on how they talk/behave in chat, I'm not creepy! :p) are older - definitely not kids anyway.

Same was true when I played FF14.

 

[CyanideCoke]

My dad plays FFXIV since Heavensward and he's 61 :) I'm 29 and I also play but he got farther than me ._.

 

[rochellepaws]

If I were to guess I'd place XIV in the mostly 20-40 range and WoW as mostly 30+ up to people playing in their retirement ages. I haven't seen teenagers or kids in either game in a long time unless they're playing with a parent.

They definitely have a very different and older audience than what you might find in f2p games.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

i'm somewhere between 30 and 40 and play xiv

 

[Musubi]

Yeah I've played XIV since the PS4 launch in 2014 and I'd say 20-40 is probably the main age demographic.

 

[Soap]

I've seen this go either way. A lot of older people play them because it's the only thing they play, but likewise a lot of older people avoid them because they can be too much work (especially things of events). Likewise I have to imagine a lot of younger people play them because they have more free time, but I also think that age group views most MMO's are archaic (these days they probably are if you look at the evolution from WoW to now).

Basically, I don't think there is any set age.

 

[alexlf]

Everyone in my FC is over 25. It's hard to tell exactly, but I only ever run into people who I think are younger than 18 a couple of times a month. It's not often.

 

[gamerjake5]

I started playing in HW and I was 19

most are 24+

 

[Lethologica]

I'm not currently playing FFXIV at the moment but I'll be 30 in less than 4 months. Can't say I encountered an abundance of "kids" playing when I played late last year.

 

[Senator Rains]

Jaded-years old.

 

[sredgrin]

Between WoW and FFXIV I only knew of like 1 teenager, everyone else was around 30 or older (as of 2019).

Even my WoW guildmates when I first took a break after Cataclysm were probably all around 30 by that point too.

 

[Ruruja]

My dad plays FFXIV since Heavensward and he's 61 :) I'm 29 and I also play but he got farther than me ._.

Click to shrink...

That's awesome.

 

[Valcrist]

Anywhere from 25 to 70+ in my experience.

 

[Kuro]

I don't think anyone in the various FCs I've been in were under 25 except for 1 where a third of the members were in college and their discord was filled with porn go figure. Didn't stay in that one very long lol.

I think Gen Zs just play Minecraft, MOBAs, Battle Royal genre, and Overwatch mostly and eat hot chip and lie.

 

[Feep]

My FC seems to be late 20's, average. I might be the oldest at 34. No one younger than early twenties, so far as I can tell.

 

[Oleander]

Yeah, certainly everyone I interact with regularly is 25 and older, verified mostly by seeing them at FanFest.

Rather than a subscription being the reason, I figure it's a result of being a ten-year-old game. We've all had the opportunity to age alongside it.

 

[Jogi]

Early 30s here and I just downloaded XIV for the first time ever today.

 

[MoonToon]

Early 30s

 

[Chackan]

Well, I was expecting to come in this thread and feel old. What a nice surprise, lol (I'm mid-30s)

 

[Bomi-Chan]

i played ff11 back in the day, but i remember being the youngest one in the guild.
same goes for phantasy star online back in the day.
wow classic is being played by friends of mine who are between 31 and 49.
mmo are usually for older people since they can afford those atrocious subs(when i played ff11, it was half of my pocket money going away for that)

kids dont want to spend money on something like that, so yeah...

 

[Yippiekai]

31 here and I really need to catch up, I'm 2 patches late to the party...
People I know playing the game are from 25 to 35.

 

[Taruranto]

Era is probably a bad place to ask this, since forums tend to populated by older people.

 

[Xeontech]

Still waiting for that WoW killer.

Or WoW sequel even lol

 

[Silav101]

i'm on the high end of age for my FC and my raid group, but there isn't anyone in either group that is younger than mid-twenties.

 

[SigSig]

Our FC is in their mid 20s.

 

[rpm]

For FFXIV at least, I'd say mid-late 20s to mid-late 30s is probably the general age range. I'm college-aged and I'd say I feel younger than most people playing. In general, Zoomers don't seem to be super big on subscripton based MMOs.

 

[Nakenorm]

I'm 29 and it's the first MMO I've ever played, starsed it just last year even.

 

[Snowfruit]

I'm 25 and I feel like I'm always the youngest in the group when playing XIV. I run into a lot of parents, people in their late 20s or 30s, college grads, etc. Haven't met anyone under 20 while playing.

 

[JoetheGamer]

Your friend sounds like a great guy and a wise man! :)

 

[Big Boy]

At 37(ish) I'm the baby of my group of WoW friends

 

[Zellia]

I'm 33 and I play FFXIV mostly to catch up with the story. Haven't got the time or patience for organised endgame raiding these days.

 

[Gala]

Most people I play with are in their early 30s.

 

[YaBish]

All the late teens early twenties are playing Warzone rn it seems like. That's the impression I get from my high school age brother.

The late twenties early thirties crowd I know is more enamored with MMOs as far as I can tell.

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

Late 20s

 

[BiohunterX]

gonna be 30 in a few months

 

[Pat002]

18, been playing since Heavensward.

 

[Issen]

The people I play with are in the 18-40 range so it's relatively broad. Most are concentrated in the 25-35 range though.

 

[FaffEra]

During the SEA f2p mmo decade you'd have a lot of kids in every MMO but they aren't popular with the younger generation anymore.

You'll struggle to find people younger than 20.

 

[Sacrilicious]

Here are some stats from a 2016 study by Nielsen's gaming subsidiary. It doesn't cover changes in last few years and isn't just subscription-based MMOs, I'd imagine both would lead to a higher age, but it should give you a rough idea of player demographics.

It seems like most are over 25, though the only hard number given in the non-paywalled sample is that 43% were aged 25-34.

 

[astro]

Everyone I persoanlly know who actively plays these games is in their 30s.

I know one guy in his mid 20s who plays games like this.

Most people I know from various groups who game online in their mid 20s are into more current trend stuff like BR, survival games, and comp FPS.

 

[Mechaplum]

Most of my guildies in WoW are in their 30s and 40s. We all started back in Vanilla ways back. /stare into the setting sun.

 

[Deleted member 64517]

Myself, my dad and my son play ESO and SWTOR together, my dad is 59 and my son is 13. Some of my son's friends have started playing ESO as well recently.

 

[noffles]

I run a free company on Chaos in FFXIV and we have ages ranging from 19 to 40. I'm mid/late 20s, but it's a really good and diverse group we have. Limsa, however, is just full of obnoxious 18-22 year olds and jaded 30 somethings moaning about it.

Diversity is good though!

 

[Deleted member 2474]

Rather than a subscription being the reason, I figure it's a result of being a ten-year-old game. We've all had the opportunity to age alongside it.

Click to shrink...

i definitely don't think most XIV players have been there for most of those 10 years. game's really blown up in the last three years or so.

 

[Belladonna]

Judging from my static and people I know it's 20 - 40.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Most of my Free Company is either college students (~20ish) or long-time FF fans in their 30s. I fall in the latter. Kids and younger teens seem very rare, but I do run into high school age teens fairly often.

Although I generally blacklist anyone who uses more than one emote in <10 seconds whenever I port into a major city. I also keep /say chat turned off in my general chat log. Probably why I rarely see any kids.