Boomers: The Sleeper Gold Mine of VR

(For a list of recommended games, check out The 10 Best VR Games for Baby Boomers)

My girlfriend's mother was visiting recently and I thought it would be cool to let her try out virtual reality. So I put my Quest 2 on her, and she didn't take it off until almost 90 minutes later when the battery died. Despite barely being able to navigate Zoom calls, this woman was bounding around VR experiences in complete wonder and joy.

I had similar experiences with my own parents. My mom, who couldn't operate an NES controller, was cooking up a storm in Job Simulator and defending herself from Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train in Audioshield. My dad, who is more of a "gamer", spent his entire session just repeating "Holy s#!t" with a huge grin on his face.

Contrast these reactions to my Millennial* friends, who will generally put it on for 10 minutes, say "oh, that's cool", and then head back to their phones. Millennials, and many Gen Xers, have been consuming the incredible tech in our modern world constantly, but often the Baby Boomer generation has been left out, largely due to new and increasingly complex user interfaces.

Yet virtual reality offers an experience that, while revolutionary, is also surprisingly intuitive. You might recall an earlier "Revolution" that drew in a slew of non-gamers...

Nielsen research confirmed this disproportionate support from the age 55+ audience for the Wii. We saw a similar, and much larger, influx of "new gamers" with the smartphone. Again, intuitive user interface, combined with reduced barrier of entry (you already have a phone!) opened up the huge, incredibly valuable, and previously ignored demographic of age 35+ women.

None of this is news, but is virtual reality really in the same category?

Circa 2013, VR was squarely in the realm of the Innovators, requiring Oculus Rift Dev Kits to play janky, homegrown VR experiments. Once the first "consumer" version released in 2016 you were looking at a $600 buy-in price on top of a $2000 gaming PC. And then there was the pain in the ass of actually using the damned thing...

Meanwhile, we saw creative but underwhelming phone VR coming in the form of Google Cardboard, Samsung's Gear VR, Oculus Go, and others. But in 2018 the Oculus Quest changed everything, even if almost nothing changed.

With the Quest, and especially the Quest 2, the barrier to entry for room-scale VR dropped to less than that of a PlayStation 4. At a base cost of $299 USD, with no cameras, tethers, or accessories needed, the Quest 2 sits comfortably in mainstream console range.

Still, the ads are continuing to target the young, hip generation:

The thing about "defying reality" though is that Millennials have few limitations - they are healthy, fit, tech-savvy, and generally can do what they want anyway. The 65+ Baby Boomer demographic on the other hand is starting to feel the limitations of aging. The ability to explore locations or participate in activities through VR offers a much larger value proposition. Plus they're loaded, holding around half of all disposable income in the US:

There is no shortage of stories of how VR has been used with positive results for the Silent Generation. One study showed that this demographic tends to react positively towards VR experiences, and reassuringly none of their 38 test subjects reported severe discomfort while using VR. We're also starting to see some companies embrace VR for seniors, especially during COVID-19 isolation. Rendever and MyndVR sell VR kits specifically tailored for home care use or assisted living facilities.

But the cash-flush, experience-eager Baby Boomers have been skipped over, with little marketing or attention aimed towards them. They're not an audience that's going to go out and try VR on their own, but once introduced to it they could be VR's best customer.

Unfortunately for game developers, marketing devices to Baby Boomers is up to Facebook (which certainly seems to have a Boomer audience available to them!), Valve, and other hardware companies.

Alternatively, retailers should get in on this too (once it is safe from a public health perspective). Best Buy had a great idea when they did their in-store demos, but that was too early, focusing on Rift and PSVR; they need to do it again with the Quest 2. Even better, get Walmart and Target doing demos and we'll see Quest 2's flying off the shelves and adoption go through the roof.

But if Baby Boomers buy a Quest 2 is there actually content for them? Unlike a few years ago, now I would say absolutely. From Walkabout Golf to Tetris Effect, there are premium, polished, and highly-accessible games that can delight all ages, and can especially appeal to the Baby Boomer demo.

Hopefully we'll see hardware manufacturers and retailers figure out that they're ignoring an incredible audience, and developers will continue creating fantastic experiences that are as good for Baby Boomers as Millennials. But for now I'll just keep showing it off to my Baby Boomer relatives, effortlessly selling Quest 2's one at a time.

* For the sake of clarity, these are the generational definitions I'm using: