Starcraft players are at their peak level at the age of 24 – at least this is what a new study published in the science magazine PLOS One suggests. This is due to your reaction times increasing with age, The study observed more than 3.000 gamers from ages 16 to 44. But don’t worry: worse reactions don’t lead to worse gaming, scientists say.

Joe Thompson with Starcraft 2

Maybe a little background first: The study by Joe Thompson, a PhD student at Simon Fraser University and Starcraft-gamer himself, and his colleagues was done to investigate the impact of age on reaction times in general. The scientists decided to use Starcraft as their base because according to them, the game doesn’t involve much physical power to convert your reactions into actions. Or in the words of the lead scientist: „The speed of your actions seems to come directly from your brain.“ That is important, because physical abilities decline with age too of course.

To find out the effect of age on your gaming abilities, the scientists analysed the games of 3.300 people between the ages of 16 and 44. They were put into groups of nearly equal skill and played each other. Thompson then watched them react to new situations in the game. Result: The older you get the more slowly you react. That’s not news itself, but the scientists were astonished by the degree of the decline – peaking at the age of 24 was as unexpected as was a significant decline at the age of 30.

But there is hope: Older players, especially professionals, are able to compensate their lack of reactions by experience. If you know what your opponent is up to, you can plan ahead and don’t need to react as quickly as possible. „We had a lot of people performing at a level higher than their speed would otherwise suggest“, Thompson says.

So what is that study good for? Thompson argues that its findings can be related to real-world situations in which people need to react in the right way as fast as possible. He names emergency calls for example. But when it comes to the real world, the study has a big lack: The 3.300 investigated gamers were 100% male – a similar decline in reaction times for women is probable, but not yet proven.

So what do you think? Are Starcraft-players declining in skill with age? If you look at the World Ranking, you can see that only 16 out of the Top100 players are 25 years or older. Is this an effect of age or socio-cultural influences (like players starting „real“ jobs, military service in South Korea etc.)?