I'm not familiar with any research on the sorts of computer games, if any, that elderly people prefer to play. But frankly, I'd certainly be interested in reading the results of any that might get done. Of course to a certain extent it's a question of exposure - on the whole computer games are designed, packaged and marketed with a younger audience in mind. Elderly people who play computer games (and I'm guessing here) have been exposed to them via their children or what's more likely, their grandchildren. What might cause them to want to learn a game is the fact that their grandchildren are playing at it, rather than a particular interest they have in that game. And since all of this is conjecture anyway, I'll take this one step further. If those grandchildren are involved in playing a complicated, or difficult to explain, game, they're not going to want to stop playing and explain what it is they're doing. On the other hand, if it's a simple game that can be picked up with a minimum of explaining and a few minutes of watching, well, that makes sense. So, it's my guess that if we'll find elderly people playing computer games at all, we'll find them playing rather simple arcade type games.

Even if the scenario I've outlined here is correct, I wouldn't mind if someone tried to verify it via some sort of research. And if there are elderly people who have become addicted to more complex computer games, I'd love to learn how this happened and what it is about these games that attracts them to them.