There are pros and cons for either demographic: whilst being older may be ideal since not only you bypass age restrictions, you also have the capability on purchasing it with your own money without having to ask parents for that given that you have employment and recurring income. Gaming as a kid gives more time without having to dwell much on responsibilities that adults have to worry about but at the same time are held by school.
It’s a tough question to answer, since we can’t go forward in time and game as a kid with the games we have now. And playing games now that we had when we were kids is different, since you already know all about them. I think I have to answer “as a kid,” though.
As a kid, we had a sense of wonder about all the new things we were unlocking. But how much of that was just being a kid and how much was the still-evolving game industry finding new ways to be exciting? Playing games now feels insane to me, because I grew up being astonished by Galaga and Pac-Man. Comparing those to Elden Ring, which is graphically and difficulty-wise and story-wise light years ahead, just doesn’t make sense. At the same time, I don’t know that I could have gained much from playing Elden Ring as a kid. For one, I would have been destroyed by the first enemy and turned away crying… not that different as an adult if I’m honest. But I probably played as much Super Mario Bros as I did Elden Ring.
I’m lucky that I have time to game as an adult. Sure, it’s only about 3 to 5 hours per week, but that’s better than a lot of adults. Some weekends I’ll get 10 or 15 hours to game. As a kid I could play for hours a day. I could have friends over most days after school to game with. They could spend the night on weekends to play late. I could borrow their games, and they could borrow mine, so I usually had a new game to try even if I didn’t have my own money.