Article

Play and Productivity:

The Constitution of
Ageing Adults in
Research on Digital
Games

Games and Culture

2016, Vol. 11(1-2) 7-27
The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/1555412014557541
gac.sagepub.com

Sara Mosberg Iversen1

Abstract
Digital games are increasingly an integral part of daily life for people of all ages and
genders. Based on a Foucauldian notion of power and discourse, the central question
discussed here is how people above the age of 60 and their engagement with digital
games are constituted within existing research. The available literature can be
separated into two distinct themes focusing on shaping and maintaining the player
and the players relation to games. A highly functionalistic approach to the use of
digital games runs through much of the research due to its preoccupation with
social, mental, and bodily health or with the needs of the game industry. This tendency is linked to notions of economical productivity, a theme that is analyzed on the
basis of theory formations from cultural gerontology as well as in relation to power
and discipline.
Keywords
digital games, ageing, cultural gerontology, discourse, discipline, power

Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Odense M, Denmark

Corresponding Author:
Sara Mosberg Iversen, Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej
55, Odense M, DK-5230, Denmark.
Email: siv@sdu.dk

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Games and Culture 11(1-2)

Digital games may once have belonged to the adolescent male but are now increasingly becoming an integral part of daily life for people of all ages and genders. For
instance, recent national surveys on the use of media in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark indicate thatvarying between the countries512% of the population above
60 years of age play digital games at least once a day. These numbers should be compared to the average for the whole population, which lies between 18% and 29%.
(Bak, Madsen, Henrichsen, & Troldborg, 2012, p. 131; Nordicom-Sverige, 2012,
p. 2; Vaage, 2012, p. 70). While remaining underexplored, research on digital games
has begun to pay more attention to ageing adults. As they are being studied and
articulated in research, these (sometimes potential) players are, likewise, turned
into particular kinds of subjects through the employed discourses (Foucault,
1982, p. 777).
The question of how ageing adults are constituted through discourse is of course
not limited to the topic of digital games. However, as digital games within Game
Studies, Design Studies and Media Psychology are typically understood as sources
of pleasure, entertainment, creativity, cultural expression, and freedom in line with
aesthetic and culturally oriented theories of play (Caillois, 2001; Gadamer, 2004;
Huizinga, 1992; Suits, 2005), it is interesting to examine how these themes are
treated when digital games are linked to ageing adults. Central here is the question
of how people above the age of 60 are constituted in relation to digital games within
the existing research on the topic (George & Whitehouse, 2011). This is an important
issue to investigate because subject positions are produced through discursive practices that enable and limit the ways in which individuals can both see and express
themselves, as well as be seen and expressed, meaningfully (Foucault, 1982; Wetherell, 1998). The aim is to investigate the truths about the topic as they are established through the offered representations and technologies as well as how these
enable certain possibilities while limiting others (Graham, 2011, pp. 665666).
The category of the old, elderly, or ageing is at any time formed within
particular historical and societal conditions. Featherstone and Hepworth (1995)
assert that chronological age in itself only became a prominent marker with the
growth of the state, industrialization and the panopticon society (p. 372).
In other words, while the ageing body does have its role to play (Blaikie, 2004,
p. 80; Gilleard & Higgs, 2009; Gunnarsson, 2011), being elderly is not so much
a product of ageing itself as indicative of values within a given society. Thus, cultural gerontologist Andrew Blaikie argues that notions of elderliness within modernity increasingly have come to have economic productivityor rather the lack of
itas its core:
Paid work in modern societies has been widely regarded as a central feature underlying
social identities, conferring independence and adult status. By contrast, those not
engaged in paid work, primarily children and the retired, have been relegated to a condition of dependency that is structured both by labour market considerations and the
machinations of the state. Not only are they marginalised through non-membership

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of the workforce, but also their exclusion is legally enforced through education policy, at
the one end, and statutory retirement ages and pensions at the other. (Blaikie, 2004, p. 81)

Although economic nonproductivity and the structures tied to it have been central
in delineating elderliness throughout most of the last century, a new paradigm has
arisen both within public discourse and policies, that of active ageing (Biggs,
2004; Marhankova, 2011). Increasingly, people above 60 years are being implored
to stay in the workforce, pensioners are encouraged to serve society through voluntary work, and the plight of every citizen to be self-dependent for as long as possible
is continuously reinforced. At any time, then, the changing policies, practices, and
discourses shape elder life in certain ways, offering the embodied being ways to act,
think, and make meaning. Here the individual with his or her stories may accept or
negotiate, in ever so slight ways, their designated roles (Foucault, 1982, p. 794; Katz,
1996, pp. 2425).
It is within this often paradoxical landscape of institutional structures, discourse,
and lived practice that I will address the constitution of ageing adults in relation to
digital games in the existing research. Drawing on work within Cultural Gerontology,1 the discourses of ageing adults and digital games are discussed in relation
to general constructions of ageing in the West. Then, with a basis in the work of Foucault, I examine the disciplining forces at play in these constructions.2 Finally, I discuss the prospects for research to challenge existing power relations through critical
inquiry and by making alternative subject positions available.

Discourse, Domination, and Technologies of Self

Foucault (1982) in his lifes work to understand the constitution of the modern subject suggest that, among others, techniques of signification, domination, and the self
are interlinked elements of this formation (pp. 777778; 1988, p. 18). Thus, while
the subject is at the center, power is the subtextor rather the relationships running
through it all. Power, according to Foucault, traverses modern society in heterogeneous networks, investing in bodies by turning them into useful, obedient subjects
(1991, pp. 2527). For Foucault the question is not so much of power itself or the
intentions behind its execution, but rather how it is exercised and what it produces.
Regarding power as a way in which certain actions modify others (Foucault,
1982, p. 788), Foucault goes on to argue that a power relationship can only be exercised when the other is recognized as an agent who has a measure of different
responses available (1982, p. 789). Thus, power is a productive force within given
relations. Power creates and forms, delineating and evaluating possibilities, for
instance, through discourse. Acting directly on a body that has no field of actions
available, on the other hand, is presented as mere violence. That is, the power of the
sovereign rather than the modern state where power relations are diffused in institutions, techniques of discipline, discourses, spaces, and bodies (Foucault, 1991).

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Central for the use of technologies of domination is visibility. Discussing both the
modern prison and the education of soldiers and children, Foucault (1991) demonstrates how the subject is turned into an object of surveillance through a myriad of
techniques: The placement in and arrangement of space, the individualization of each
subject through documentation, the creation of strict procedures for actions, continual evaluation according to a given standard, and so on. The goal is always to
increase efficiency and normalize, rendering the individual productive and obedient.
Or, if the first is not possible, the abnormal are contained within fitting institutions.
While technologies of power are wielded in order to affect the actions of others, the
technologies of the self offer techniques for the individuals own self-formation:
[they] permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and ways
of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness,
purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality. (Foucault, 1988, p. 18)

Although the individuals operations on himself or herself tend to be inspired,

encouraged, and supported by discourses and power relations diffused within society, these are conscious and chosen acts of self-shaping. To exemplify what use of
technologies of self means, Foucault discusses the Greco-Roman and early Christian
techniques such as getting to know oneself through reflexivity and by taking stock of
the days goals and deeds, mental exercise, seeking and giving advice, physical
training, abstinence, and so on (1988, 1993). The technologies of the self, then, can
be regarded as means for producing the good life by working on ones self. From the
outset, these techniques are not necessarily envisioned as machines or tools,
although artefacts may be used in the shaping of the self, too. In recent years, the
notion has thus been explored in relation to information and communication technology (Bakardjieva & Garden, 2012; Royse, Lee, Undrahbuyan, Hopson, & Consalvo,
2007; Siles, 2012).
Discourse, that is, the ways in which the world is given certain meanings and not
others, is necessarily intertwined in the use of technologies of domination and the
self because it at any time patrols the borders of the thinkable, knowable, and sayable
(Foucault, 2010, p. 62). This does not mean that individuals are limited to drawing
on the truths that are contained within dominant discourses. However, if one
wants to make sense in relation to others it is necessary to employ the discourses
available. In order to analyze the constitutive movements at play in the current
research on ageing adults and digital games, I examine the resulting discourses.

Reading With an Eye for Discourse

The research on ageing adults and digital games discussed here has been identified
via database searches in EBSCHO, ACM Digital, and MEDline, using the search
terms elderly, ageing, seniors, old, video games, and digital games.

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Criteria for inclusion are that the articles contain peer-reviewed research specifically
considering ageing adults (60) in relation to digital games. In order to limit
the scope, all review articles (Bleakley et al., 2013; Hall, Chavarria, Maneeratana,
Chaney, & Bernhardt, 2012; IJsselsteijn, Nap, de Kort, & Poels, 2007; Larsen,
Schou, Lund, & Langberg, 2013; Marston, Greenlay, & van Hoof, 2013; Marston
& Smith, 2012; Miller et al., 2014; Whitecomb, 1990) have been left out.
With regard to method, it is important to stress that the existing research is examined with the objective to identify discursive constructions rather than with a focus
on the soundness of the individual studies, their findings, or any overall trends in the
presented results. As has been made clear previously, it is not individual intentions
that are targeted here, but rather the socially established ways of knowing, speaking,
and doing that proliferate in relation to people above 60 and their (at times potential)
engagement with digital games. Thus, individual researchers may well be compelled
to draw on dominant discourses that they do not necessarily agree with, simply
because existing discourses have already marked the requirements for making sense.
In order to approach the analysis of discourse systematically, every article has
been coded with regard to:
 The stated aims, in order to examine the kinds of sense the researcher can
make of the topic within different disciplinary formations, such as Psychology, Gerontology, Media Studies, Design Studies, and Game Studies,
 The reasons given for the relevance of the research, in order to examine the existing discourses that the various studies draw upon and are inscribed into, and
 The representation of ageing and ageing adults, in order to examine the subject positions made available through the given portrayals.
Reviewing the available literature on this basis, the studies focusing on digital games
in relation to those above 60 years of age can be separated into two distinct, yet
related, themes focusing on:
 maintaining and shaping the player and
 the players relation to digital games.
A few research articles touch on both themes, but generally there are not a lot of
overlapping cases.

Maintaining and Shaping the Player

The largest portion of the analyzed literature focuses on the maintenance or shaping
of ageing adults, with regard to:
 development of new technological skills (Derboven, Van Gils, & De Groof,
2012; Martinez, Moran, & Gamez, 2012; Vasconcelos, Silva, Caseiro, Nunes,
& Teixeira, 2012) and

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 physical, mental, and social well-being (Alankus, Proffitt, Kelleher, &

Engsberg, 2011; Allaire et al., 2013; Basak, Boot, Voss, & Kramer, 2008; Clark
& Kraemer, 2009; Gajadhar, Nap, Kort, & IJsselsteijn, 2010; Gerling, Livingston, Nacke, & Mandryk, 2012; Gerling, Schulte, & Masuch, 2011; Goldstein
et al., 1997; Hardy, Gobel, & Steinmetz, 2013; Janssen, Tange, & Arends, 2013
Jung, Li, Janissa, Gladys, & Lee, 2007; Kahlbaugh, Sperandio, Carslon, &
Hauselt, 2011; Khoo, Merritt, Cheok, & Yeo, 2007; Levy et al., 2012; Maillot,
Perrot, & Hartley, 2012; McCallum & Boletis, 2013; Mubin, Shahid, & Al
Mahmud, 2008; Nacke, Nacke, & Lindley, 2009; Rice et al., 2013; Schueren,
1996; Smeddinck, Gerling, & Tiemkeo, 2013; Stern et al., 2011; Studenski
et al., 2010; Theng, Chua, & Pham, 2012; Voida & Greenberg, 2012).
These studies in various ways test the potential effects of digital game playing in
relation to specific problems linked to ageing adults. Additionally, some of the studies evaluate a particular game design with regard to its effectiveness.
The reason given for research in half of the cases is an explicit or implicit economic rationale. For instance, Kahlbaugh, Sperandio, Carslon, and Hauselt emphasize that the costs of unsuccessful aging are important on societal and individual
levels (2011, p. 332), while Yin-Leng Theng, Chua, and Pham assert that the possible isolation of more elderly could lead to societal and mental health problems that
could weigh down on public healthcare systems (2012, p. 691). Ageing adults are
here portrayed as a particular vulnerable group whom society should try to maintain
through the use of technology in order to keep the costs of medical treatment and
care down. Thus, on one hand, these studies seek ways to better the lives of societys
ageing population; on the other hand, the very same people are turned into problematic economic subjects who drain an already beleaguered societys resources. The
rest of the studies do not invoke socioeconomical factors directly, but simply state
that the proposed intervention may affect the ageing adults health or abilities in a
desired way. That is, improve health or motivate use of digital technology. Some
studies quote quality of life or continued independence as the main goal of this intervention, as in the example here:
Fall injury or fear of falling again is associated with further functional decline and
depression, and functional decline should be prevented for the sake of peoples independence. Therefore, it is important to focus on ways to improve the balance of nursing
home residents. (Janssen et al., 2013, p. 89)

In this case, the ageing adult is invoked as an agentic being with a desire for independence. Others studies do not reflect explicitly about the underlying purpose of
health interventions, probably because the desirability of health and skill improvement is assumed to be given. Yet, while it may certainly increase the ageing adults
quality of life, these activities are simultaneously a way to maintain effective subjects who do not incur expensive health and care costs.

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With regard to the representation of ageing adults, many of the studies invoke the
growing population of elderly in the West as a societal challenge. Where ageing
adults are thematized more elaborately, the conceptualizations largely focus on the
decline associated with ageing and the problems that may arise on this basis. For
instance, the increasingly ailing body, decaying cognitive abilities, social isolation
due to immobility or societal structures, too much empty time with no meaningful
activities to fill it, and lack of motivation to exercise and maintain ones health:
In general, seniors (60 years of age) are faced with mobility issues due to cognitive,
perceptual and motor impairments. In addition, a Meta-Analysis of 40 studies conducted in Europe and North America showed that 20-35% of people aged 65 to 79 years
and 40-50% of those aged >80 report moderate to serious loneliness. (Gajadhar et al.,
2010)
Older adults face significant health care challenges ranging from age-related
changes resulting in reduced cognitive performance and resilience, as well as reduced
physical abilities, acute disease, and age-related illnesses, such as dementia, stroke, or
injury [ . . . ]. (Smeddinck et al., 2013)

While a few studies explicitly target either frail or healthy ageing adults, most of
the research offers some general descriptions of the bodily, mental, and social consequences of ageing, representing ageing adults as a rather homogeneous group facing similar problems. At other times, the ageing adults are grouped with children as a
particular market for training games (Nacke et al., 2009, p. 493). The ageing adults
in these studies are to a great degree presented as hesitant and immobile, requiring
the intervention of outside forces in order to better or maintain their current state of
life. It is, thus, quite symptomatic that those suffering from dementia are not mentioned when Simon MacCallum and Costas Boletis list the stakeholdersdoctors,
caretakers and the public (2013, p. 16)who might be interested in digital games
used to prevent this condition.

The Players Relation to Digital Games

The other dominant approach within existing research is concerned with understanding the needs, motivations, and attitudes of ageing adults in relation to digital games
or specific design features (Brown, 2012; Derboven et al., 2012; De Schutter, 2011;
De Schutter & Vanden Abeele, 2010; De Schutter, Brown, & Vanden Abeele,
2014a; De Schutter & Maillet, 2014; Dogruel, Jockel, & Bowman, 2012; Gerling,
Schild, & Masuch, 2010; Marston, 2013a, 2013b; McKay & Maki, 2010; Nap, de
Kort, & IJsselsteijn, 2009; OBrien, Knapp, Thompson, McPhill, & Barrett, 2013;
Rice et al., 2011; Riddick, Drogin, & Spector, 1987; Studenski et al., 2010; Yee,
Duh, & Quek, 2010).3
A little under one third of the studies give the reason for their investigation that
the topic is important in itself, for instance, addressing ageing adults use of digital

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games and gaming technology in everyday life (De Schutter et al., 2014a), reasons
for accepting or rejecting digital entertainment technologies (Dogruel et al., 2012)
and the experience of flow (Marston, 2013b). Notably, the rest of the articles either
refer to the possibility of bettering health or social relations or to the needs of the
game industry when arguing for the relevance of the research. It is important to
emphasize that the majority of these studies are not market oriented as such nor concerned with measuring health effects. However, despite the interest taken in the
players articulated experiences and motivations, for one reason or other the
researchers have chosen to emphasize the commercial or health-oriented utility of
the studies.
Conceptualizing the ageing adults as users of digital games or as an attractive and
underinvestigated consumer segment with particular needs and tastes, these studies
typically present ageing adults as a heterogeneous group with different experiences
and preferences. Likewise, while some studies mention or focus on the possible
health benefits of playing particular types of digital games, the ageing adults in most
of these studies are presented as healthy, active, and in charge of their own lives. I
believe this focus on diversity to a great degree is due to the qualitative or caseoriented focus of much of this research. However, it also aligns well with marketorientation, as consumer society to a great degree operates by offering individuality
to the consumers by commodifying difference and celebrating branded diversity
(Klein, 2010).

The Beneficiality of Digital Games

Generally, when the meaning of digital games or their design is considered, tropes
like fun, entertainment and challenge abound (Adams, 2010, pp. 1825, 252252;
Fullerton, 2008, pp. 312347; Koster, 2004; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, pp. 329
358). However, something that is shared by the majority of research cited above
is a utilitarian approach. That is, the focus is foremost on the potential beneficiality
of playing while elements otherwise often associated with playing games such as
pleasure, fun, relaxation, or finding ways of tackling existence are often wholly lacking
or treated as a means to a greater and more important end. This perspective emerges to a
great degree from a concern with measurements of effect or compatibility between
design and skills rather than the participants lived experiences and viewpoints. Similar
to the objectification of ageing adults within traditional gerontologyor the creation of
the old subject in the first place, if one wills (Cohen, 1992; Katz, 1996, pp. 126), this is a
product of certain knowledge paradigms, an outcome of discipline.
Yet, even the more emicly oriented studies that aim to provide the ageing adults
own perspectives, in many cases have a curious focus on the assumed beneficiality
of playing digital games. The ageing informants in a qualitative study by De Schutter
and Vanden Abeele (2010), for instance, stress social benefits, doing good, and educational potential as important aspects of meaningful digital games. These same tendencies can be seen in Julie Browns interview-based pilot study focusing on the

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factors that contribute to or hinder game engagement (2012, p. 273). In contrast,

Henk Nap and coauthors conclude that while the participants in their interview study
emphasize the brain-training aspects of digital gaming, it seems that most rather play
for fun and relaxation or as a coping mechanism (Nap et al., 2009, p. 259). It may of
course be that playfulness and enjoyment are not important for ageing adults when
using digital games. However, a content study of ageing adults online behaviour by
Galit Nimrod (2011) concludes that fun, joking, playfulness, and silly games are
highly important for this group. More likely, the above results should be seen as
indicators of the interview situations delicacy where dominant conceptualizations
easily form the conversation despite efforts to the contrary (Alvesson, 2003). Apparently, a utilitarian approach is nearly inescapable in relation to particular digital
game users. A powerful discursive strand construes people of a certain age as being
in particular need of formative instruction. Brian Sutton-Smith points to this in his
discussion of different discourses on play:
The rhetoric of play as progress, usually applied to childrens play, is the advocacy of
the notion that animals and children, but not adults, adapt and develop through their
play (Chapters 2 and 3). This belief in play as progress is something that most Westerners cherish, but its relevance to play has been more often assumed than demonstrated.
(Sutton-Smith, 2001, p. 9)

Developing his argumentation over several chapter of The Ambiguity of play

(Sutton-Smith, 2001, pp. 3551), Sutton-Smith discusses the functionalistic discourses in which play becomes a mean to a developmental end. As can be seen in
a majority of the studies discussed here, maintenance or deferral comes to inhabit
the position of development at the other end of the life course. Yet, the underlying
sentiment is still formative.

Consumption and Decline

The visions outlined previously of what it means to be an ageing adult in relation to
digital games stress that notions of ageing today offer several positions to employ
and a variety of meaning constellations. This is well in line with the more recent theorization of ageing in the West:
Within contemporary gerontology, the idea that there is just one old age has been challenged by the growth of what may be termed third-age studies distinguished by their
focus on contingency, diversity, and difference. [ . . . ] Excluded from this discourse
has been any deeper articulation of what has been brought into, if not existence, then
at least contrasted reliefthe fourth age [ . . . ]. (Gilleard & Higgs, 2009, p. 121)

Taking their starting point in the influential book by Peter Laslett A fresh map of
life: The emergence of the third age (1989), Chris Gilleard and Paul Higgs (2013)

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suggest that notions of older age have changed in the West after the Second World
War with new practices, understandings, and possibilities. However, as an active
youngold category has emerged, they go on to argue, this notion contains within
it an image of that which it seeks to repel, that is, the old-old. This latter condition
they term the fourth age. While it may seem obvious that the fourth age chronologically follows the third, Gilleard and Higgs (2013) emphasize that these conceptualization should rather be seen as two different paradigms of ageing. It is relevant
to delve deeper into these available visions of oldness because it may aid in further
investigating the constitution of ageing adults within research on digital games.
With regard to the third age, Gilleard and Higgs (2009, pp. 121122) consider this
a cultural field. That is, a set of attitudes, rhetorics, possibilities, and expectations
(in short practices) that have emerged mainly as a result of the ageing generations
experiences with and participation in consumer society. Although the phase where
third life practices are expected is largely situated within postwork life, it is defined
not so much by particular age spans as by being a stage in which agedness is
actively warded off through consumption (Coupland, 2009; Gilleard & Higgs,
2009). Retaining maturity by acting and dressing age appropriate while on the
other hand maintaining youthfulness through diet, care products, clothing, and exercise, the ageing adults of today tend to identify more with their children than their
parents (Biggs, Phillipson, Leach, & Money, 2007). It can, moreover, be argued that
productivity, the lack of which has defined old age in modernity (Blaikie, 2004), is
retained by the retired consumer who, buying leisure activities, services, and goods,
still makes societys wheels turn. Consumption, then, can even be regarded as a strategy for maintaining societal relevance past the years in the workforce. Gilleard and
Higgs regard consumerism as a shared habitus that informs ageing even for those
who can or will not participate in the feast of the markets (2009, p. 122123).
Contrastingly, the fourth age in Gilleard and Higgs perspective is defined as the
combination of a public failure of self-management and the securing of this failure
by institutional forms of care (2009, p. 122). This is a vision of old age where body
and mind no longer cooperate, and the old person increasingly becomes subject to
the care of others. With the gradual loss of bodily control, agency is expected to
diminish (Jolanki, 2009, p. 217). The fourth age is the place for confused, leaking,
sometimes revolting bodies (Brijnath & Manderson, 2008). It is the end of productivity, then. The old person no longer has much to offer a neoliberal society. Ultimately, and for a Western mind-set perhaps most terrifying, the fourth age is a
realm from where no one returns. It is the onset of death. Articulating the fourth age
as a social imaginary (2013), Gilleard and Higgs stress, that this notion is important first and foremost as a bleak vision of what may come. It is the dark side of the
third ages luminous moon. In other words, while the elements related to this image
may well play out for some ageing adults as concrete reality, the concept is even
more important as a frightening apparition.
Turning again to the research on digital games and ageing adults, it can be argued
that most of the studies approach their subject largely on the basis of one of these two

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logics. One approach stresses the attractive market made up of ageing adults who
attain individuality and agency through consumption. Playing digital games may
here be a way to hold unto ones current life while old age slowly creeps closer.
Entertainment technologies are, likewise, offered as a means for prolonging the third
age by training the brain or for motivating a less sedentary lifestyle for those who do
not eagerly accept active ageing. In this light, digital games become one of the available means both for society and for the individual to escape the unpleasant perspectives of the fourth age. The fourth age, likewise, appears throughout the discussed
studies. Sometimes it is a looming threat to be fended off. However, it also materializes as a stage whose ailments digital games may help to contain, supplementing or
replacing expensive human care.

Ageing and Forms of Discipline

If not always fully explicit, I will argue that discipline, and in turn the technologies
of domination and self, is vital for understanding the treatment of ageing in the
research on digital games and people above 60. As discussed previously, the third
age can be envisioned as a site of agency and choice. This state of affairs is maintained by the individuals upkeep of personal disciplinary regimes, activities that are
reinforced by public discourse and policies. The care of the self in this case is aimed
at keeping the body productive through consumptive practices, making it balance
somewhere between the perceived young and old (Biggs et al., 2007). Digital
games in this regard are both offered as training equipment for body and mind and
more implicit markers of youthfulness.
In Foucaults (1988) analyses, the technologies of self in antiquity were aimed at
once at body and soul, shifting then to the Christian eras preoccupation with the soul
(pp. 3149). However, the technologies of the self dominating the third age as they
appear in the research papers seem to be mainly concerned with the physicality of
being. The focus on mind is not that of preparing for death (as was the practiced
of the Stoics) or of reviving past pleasures to enlighten the now (as preferred by the
Epicureans) (Foucault, 1988, pp. 3637). Rather the focus is on cognitive capabilities, of staying fresh and continually operational. In this endeavor, there is an obvious intersection between societys need for obedient and productive bodies, and the
individuals want to prolong an active and self-dependent life. These practices seek
to fend off the sinister promise of the fourth age. In this regard, the imagery of the
fourth age can be seen as a discursive bogeyman, useful for scaring resistant subjects
into submission. If and when body and mind do give in, refusing the individuals
own disciplinary means, society is ready to take over, confining the uncooperative
subject in hospitals, retirement homes, or the home with the aid of responsible others
(Brijnath & Manderson, 2008). This containment can be secured by keeping the
weak elders docile, happy, and as well functioning as possible through the use of
entertainment technologies as suggested in much of the reviewed research.

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The notion of discipline may even offer an answer to a question discussed earlier,
namely, why ageing adults and children tend to be singled out as groups who in particular require a functionalistic approach to the use of digital games. As already
touched upon, one technique of domination according to Foucault is the individualization of the population through surveillance, documentation, and evaluation. As
every citizen is singled out according to their characteristics, some are more so than
others:
In a system of discipline, the child is more individualized than the adult, the patient
more than the healthy man, the madman, and the delinquent more than the normal and
non-delinquent. In each case, it is toward the first of these pairs that all the individualizing mechanisms are turned in our civilization; and when one wishes to individualize
the healthy, normal and law-abiding adult, it is always by asking him how much of the
child he has in him, what secret madness lies within him, what fundamental crime he
has dreamt of committing. (Foucault, 1991, p. 193)

According to Foucaults understanding of normalcy, ageing adults cannot afford

to play just for the sake of doing it. In being less productive, they are also less normal and, hence, subject to greater scrutiny. What digital games in the discussed
research seem to offer is a degree of normalization that may ensure continued inclusion in societyor when that project is no longer possible, at least a means for still
grasping at strands of normality.

A Thousand Things
As has already been made clear earlier, I am fully aware that the intention behind the
discussed studies is not to turn ageing adults into problematic subjects. Yet, the
employed discourses in many cases do so. I will here suggest at least two closely
related reasons why these discourses are maintained despite the denormalization
of ageing adults that they contribute to. First, the research on ageing adults and digital games examined here draws on already existing discourses, negotiating the webs
of power and discipline of which science is an influential component. The images of
ageing proliferating in society, thus, inform initial assumptions. Moreover, even if
one may be questioning dominant understandings of ageing, a focus on the problematic elements of ageing and a functionalistic outlook may well be required in order
to secure funding (Foucault, 2010, p. 64). In this way, discourse techniques of power
and discipline intersect in setting up certain boundaries for how the world must be
seen, investigated, and understood.
Bearing in mind that power is productive and, hence, at play in all human activity,
is there anything to be done at all or are we as scholars impotently caught in our own
webs of domination? Turning again to Foucault, famous for his insistence on not prescribing solutions, he nevertheless remains hopeful with regard to the potential for
change:

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And if I dont say what needs to be done, it isnt because I believe there is nothing to be
done. On the contrary, I think there are a thousand things that can be done, invented,
contrived by those who, recognizing the relations of power in which they are involved,
have decided to resist them or escape them. From that viewpoint, all my research rests
on a postulate of absolute optimism. I dont construct my analyses in order to say,
This is the way things are, you are trapped. I say these things only insofar as I believe
it enables us to transform them. (Foucault, 1994, pp. 294295)

Here Foucault points to recognition as the first step toward resistance and change.
It means accepting that one is already part of the power relations that define how
reality is supposed to make sense, taking on the responsibility for the shaping powers
one holds. On this basis, it is possible to examine the working of the webs of dominance in terms of, for instance, acceptable reasons for knowledge production, the
constitution of facts, institutional backing, technological formation, procedures, and
so on. Here also arises a potential for resistance, in that one may choose to provide
alternative interpretations and new subject positions, in this case for the ageing
adults who play digital games.
The provision of alternative subject positions, will, I believe, at times require that
the relation between ageing adults and games is examined from an emic perspective.
That is, from the lived insider perspective of the informants in order to gain insight
into the ways in which the ageing users of digital games think about, understand, and
carry out their practices. As it is, there are remarkably few qualitative studies of ageing adults in relation to digital games. However, as some of the discussed studies
also illustrate, an emic perspective alone is not enough to provide alternative subject
positions because dominant existing positions are used as meaning-providing
resources not just by researchers but by the ageing adults themselves. Sometimes
it is possible for a skilful and aware interviewer or observer to move beyond these
publicly reinforced and acceptable ways of being an ageing adult. However, often
these notions are the very foundation for making sense of ones existence and, hence,
not something that can easilyand perhaps even should notbe deconstructed
within the encounter between researcher and informants. This is where one has to
turn to, for instance, discourse analysis, Actor Network Theory or practice theory
(among others) in order to examine how existing formations become true, silencing alternative subject positions and ways of making meaning of the world.
The provision of alternative subject positions, however, is not enough either.
It has been a big step forward that the White heterosexual male is no longer the
game player per seeven if gamer culture is still dominated by this particular
ideal (Nakamura, 2012; Shaw, 2012). However, it is even important to consider
on which pretexts different subjects are allowed to become players. While there
are no White-hetero-male games, there are plenty of girl games, casual games,
learning games, and brain-training games aimed at particular, typically nongamer audiences. It should be continually discussed and questioned why some
players are allowed to play for the sheer pleasure of it while others can only

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Games and Culture 11(1-2)

meaningfully engage with digital games if there is a greater good to be obtained

by it (van Leeuwen & Westwood, 2008).

Digital Games and Productivity

What it means to be an ageing adult differs through the ages and from culture to culture. Here, on the basis of Foucauldian notions of power, discipline, and discourse, I
have examined how ageing adults are constituted in relation to digital games within
the existing research. Reviewing the available literature with a focus on justifications for research, aims, and the portrayal of ageing adults, I have identified two
dominant discourses. These are concerned with (1) the shaping and maintenance
of the player and (2) the players relation to digital games.
In my analysis of the literature, I have argued that notions of economical productivity inform much of the work often explicitly and at other times more implicitly.
This conceptualization appears in two different versions. The first focuses on bettering the health, well-being, or competences of ageing adults. Thus, digital games
have been suggested as a means for encouraging or bettering ageing adults digital
competences, envisioned as brain and body trainers or as socialization aid for the
lonely. However, more often than not these benevolent goals are coupled with invocations of the demographic development as a looming or actual economical threat.
Another economically informed approach to ageing adults in relation to digital
games emphasizes this group as an untapped and highly attractive consumer segment. These two groupings, interestingly, align well with notions of the third and
fourth age that represent two different paradigms of ageing. While the third age is
concerned with warding off oldness through consumption, the fourth age appears
as a looming threat of decline and death. Digital games in relation to both the third
and the fourth age have disciplinary means to offer; as technologies of the self, used
in the individuals self-formation, or as ways to contain and maintain the disobedient bodies and minds of the frail old.
While there are exceptions, the ageing adults in the examined studies are largely
portrayed as ailing, hesitant, in need of encouragement to do what is good for them
as well as requiring the care of others. This outlook is coupled with a mainly functionalistic approach to the use of digital games, where the beneficiality of playing in
terms of health maintenance is central rather than, for instance, enjoyment, pleasure,
or creativity. Importantly, it is not only the researchers who invoke the beneficiality
of digital games above other reasons for playing. To the degree that the ageing adults
themselves are given voice, they often, too, focus on learning and training elements
of digital games. This underlines that both researchers and informants to a great
degree draw on the same subject positions that are available to make sense of being
an ageing adult. Central here is their lack of economical productivity and the denormalization this entails. This results in a conception of ageing which encourages ageing adults to prove their societal worth by playing mainly to obtain other ends,
namely those of health maintenance.

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Scholars of digital games have a responsibility for acknowledging and continuously questioning the networks of power in which our research is inscribed as well
as the subject positions it makes available. More emicly oriented research may provide a better understanding of the ageing adults own perspectives. However, as daily
conversation uses available discourses as a sense-making resource, it is even necessary to critically investigate what can and cannot be said, meant, and practiced
within the dominant discourse formations.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

Notes
1. Cultural gerontology, according to the European Network in Ageing Studies, reveals and
dissects culturally-determined perceptions, attitudes and effects of human ageing (ENAS,
2013, not paginated).
2. I base my understanding of power on the whole of Foucaults authorship, which shifts from
a focus mainly on domination to one that takes individual agency more into account (Gordon, 1991). While some may see a discrepancy between his early and later theorizing on
power, Foucault himself maintains the clear relation between the two (Allen, 2011; Foucault, 1982).
3. Two studies that have been omitted here count as older players those above the age of
3540 (Pearce, 2008; Quandt, Grueninger, & Wimmer, 2009).

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Author Biography
Sara Mosberg Iversen is an assistant professor at the Department for the Study of Culture,
University of Southern Denmark. She studies digital games as procedural texts as well as
their uses and place in everyday living. Players who fall outside the norms inherent in gamer
culture are a particular research interest.

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