How did you get into gaming?

When I was really little, I used to play games mostly for social reasons. I remember the days of just sitting next to your friend and playing two player Mario and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then my parents felt bad that I didn't own a console myself and offered me the choice of SNES or Sega Genesis. I chose Sega, with Sonic and Knuckles being the first game that was just for me. And then after that, I was hooked. I will say though, what truly got me into gaming was Metal Gear Solid on PS1. For once, I actually cared about a fictional character and their story. The game was just mind blowing for its time. A true masterpiece. What about you, SW? What got you into gaming?

Not sure. How does anyone remember? The fact that many do surprises me.

I had an original Gameboy Pocket but it didn't really interest me that much. It wasn't until my mum bought my Dad a Playstation 1, he got F1 97 and Destruction Derby 2. I miss those days.

When I was 3 years old my neighborhood friend got the brand new NES and Super Mario Bros. I've been hooked ever since.

My uncle asked if I wanted to play Legend of the Zelda on NES in 95, been gaming since.

My dad brought home a Commodore SX-64 from the dump with a box full of games and software when I was 4.

I should add, my friend had a Megadrive and I played Sonic and Toe Jam and Earl on that but again, I was too young to be hooked on it.

there was an NE and an NES at the house.

Parents bought me and my brother an N64 and GameBoy Color.

After that I bought a PS1, and GameCube, GameBoy Adavnce SP, an XBOX (that I then got rid of quickly), PS2, PSP, PS3, PS4.

My older bro had an Atari 2600 and didn't game too much, so it was basically mine as soon as I was old enough to figure it out. Most of the games sucked, but stuff like Combat and Jungle Hunt pulled me in.

Other than that, I'd game at the arcades every chance I got.

When I was 7 my parents picked up a NES though and that's when gaming became a life long hobby for me. SMB sealed the deal.

First played NES Mario Bros with my neighbor.

One day my Dad brought home a SNES with Link to the Past. Never looked back.

Dad bought Commodore 64 and we also had 386 desktop

Begging my brothers for my turn to play Pong back in the late 1970s. Then playing Burger Time and other games with a friend in the early 1980s, Mattel electronics Sports games and a Donkey Kong handheld, a Commodore 64 then on to the Sega Master System. The Genesis was the first console I bought myself.

I started in 91 at the age of 8 on NES, then moved to Megadrive. In 95 I met a guy who told me I was playing kiddy games, that the real, adult games are on PC. I didn't believe him. And then he showed me War Craft and Full Throttle, and I was blown away. After that, I begged and begged my mom to buy me a gaming PC, but I only got it three years later, in 1998 :' ( My first PC was Pentimum 2 MMX 266Mhz, 4 MB of RAM, 2 MB of video, 3.2 GB of HDD and Windows 95. My own first game ever was War Hammer Dark Omen, Total War's precursor.

Then Star Craft and Fallout 2 followed.

My dad when I was young had a Sega Genesis and a handful of those Game & Watch's that Nintendo used to make.

I was born!

My father was a gamer so I was introduced into gaming since before I could walk and I grew up with Atari 2600, Intellivision, Arcades, and later the NES and Sega Master System.

What's interesting to me, is this topic came up before years back and I usually read a male figure like Dad, Uncle, or brothers as the introduction. You don't hear a lot of stories about mothers, aunts, or sisters introducing people to gaming. I know statistically it has happened, but it's far fewer than the opposing trend. Looking at the comments before I made this post (posts like this usually inspire someone to flip the script), the male figure introduction to gaming trend is just as I remembered from years ago.

Playing my cousins NES with Super Mario Bros/Duck hunt after school, when he wasn't around.

I'm an 80's kid.

No idea. I was about 6 or 7 when I started. Probably from watching relatives play games.

@SolidTy:

And I've continued this trend by passing on the torch to younger siblings, nieces, nephews, etc..

But yeah, to your point, I think it makes sense. It seems most of the posters on this board are 80s/90s gamers along with a few 70s gamers here and there. Gaming was mostly a thing for dudes back then. You'd rarely see a chick being queen of an arcade back in the day and any time I ever went over to a friends house to game, the systems always belonged to the dude, not his sister.

I think it will change going forward, women are a much bigger part of the gaming community now than they were back in our days. If we're still hanging around this skeleton of a board a decade from now, maybe we'll hear some different stories lol.

I'm not sure exactly. I've always been surrounded by computers and videogames since I was a baby. My dad was a tech geek just like me, he had a Colecovision he and my mom used to play, and an Atari as well. He also used to build several PCs back in the day and program on them for fun. I guess growing up and watching him do those things I naturally got drawn into gaming and computing. I do know that the first console I owned that was mine was a Sega Master System (Alex Kidd) my dad bought for me when I turned 5 and the first computer that was very first own was a Macintosh classic that I inherited from my dad when I was 7. Since then I've been heavily invested in console and PC gaming (I'm 31 years old now).

I was 3. My Dad bought a Sega Megadrive for my Mum, with Sonic and a Tetris clone called Columns. They had it set up to a tiny portable TV in their bedroom. I used to sit with her as she played it, but it quickly swapped to me been the one allowed to play, while she watched and helped me out when I got stuck.

So true, it seems for most of us it was a male older figure that got us into gaming. I expect that to change a bit going forward. There are a lot more female gamers these days.

Oh great!! How about that 'Ty?! Not so subtle way for Conan to say he's leaving us, huh?

I was almost born into it. The atari 2600 came out in 77'. I was three years old. It was the most hyped awesome thing ever. My cousins had one and I wasn't going to let my parents have any peace until I owned one. I even made one out of a cardboard box and would pretend to play it. My parents relented and I've been a video game junky ever since. It still worked until a few years back. You wont be getting that kinda life out of current hardware.

My daughter has been playing them since birth.

lol

Nah, in all seriousness though, I just doubt this board will still be around in 10 years. I give it 5, tops.

Arcade games, Atari 2600/Intelevision then moving on to NES/Genesis, then PS1

When my Parents were shopping at the mall back in 1992, it was me and my two sisters were going to Toys R Us, my sister were looking around, I lay my eyes on SNES console that they had on display, I play with it for a long time, my parents ask me if I wanted one of those and told them yes, and that's basically how I got into gaming in the first place, my parents got me SNES and I been gaming ever since in 1992. My sisters love playing my games as well, my parents weren't always around in the house so it was just me and my two sisters who run the house for the most parts, going to school and when school was over, we couldn't wait to play Super Mario World, Star Fox and so many more awesome games and when Sega Genesis console came out, my parents got me that too and yeah been playing different console games all my life. Also I didn't get into PC gaming until the year 2007.

@ConanTheStoner: One of my favorite comedies ever.

Watched my dad and his mates play Atari but it wasnt until I was 5 when my mum put me on Harrier Attack for the Amstrad CPC to stop me complaining of boredom that I became a gamer; that was 31 years ago.

My father had a commador 64, at the time, "The Last Ninja" looked like the best thing ever.

Then Street Fighter Ii looked like the best thing ever.

Then Doom looked like the best thing ever.

e.c.t....

Gaming is mostly bad now and everything sucks. Woe.

Dad bought a Amiga 2000 for himself and a 1000 for us. Then Granny bought us a NES with Zapper and Powerpad. Stuff like Defender of the Crown and Rescue the Embassy on Amiga, and Mario, Double Dragon, Chip n Dale, ect on NES.

@jhonMalcovich:

Same specs I had for my first self built PC. Also Full Throttle was awesome.

There are some pics of me as a toddler playing Atari. I obviously wasn't old enough to play correctly but from the start I loved video games.

The one that really made me a gamer was Super Mario Bros. I still remember after opening my bday gifts my mom had me turn on the tv, which was weird because I wanted to play with my new toys not watch tv. She had the Nintendo hooked up and playing SMB. My friends and I were instantly addicted to NES. NES was a way of life back then. Glad I was part of the Nintendo craze. Great times.

I'm a 41 year old gamer and been playing games on my Gemini/Atari 2600 since "79".Killed many foes and have died many horrible death's over the decades of game playing.My brother bought a Gemini from one of his grade school buddies for $50,and I got it for Christmas with a shoe box full of games.Hooked ever since.

Ps1 snes n64 when I went to friends houses since we were too poor to afford consoles then I bought my own ps2 and ps3 that's when I went hardcore now own all systems but 3ds and my vita is just there until I get a memory card for it.

as an only child in house was so boring, i got as present when 4 or soemthing? an atari? amiga? just occupied my time, then evolved as things do over years

Xevious on Atari, got me into gaming mid 80's(an older kid on my block had it).

Not sure exactly "when", had an older brother that was into gaming and saw to it the living room was well stocked with an NES and Genesis, we also had an Atari, Turbo Grafx and Master System. Once he grew out of gaming me and my sister carried the torch, begged our parents to get us an SNES. We'd rent NES, SNES, Genesis games at the local Blockbuster when it opened. Eventually also upgraded the Genesis with a Sega CD. And pretty much kept in interest with nearly every major console to date. At about 4th grade my dad got me my own PC to do school work on, use educational multimedia, etc. Though, with there being a wide variety of $5 shareware games on 3.5" floppies for titles like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D I got hooked on PC gaming pretty quick.

I've always been a big gamer, but I had a falling out with gaming somewhat during college because it effected my schoolwork, but afterwards after I got a job and had my own apartment and an expendable income, it came back with a vengeance.

Hard for me to remember exactly... it was a while ago. I remember my dad brought home a Sega Master System from work one day (he got it off a customer), and I naturally started playing it. And it was awesome. So that probably kick started my love of gaming. But I know my cousin also had a pretty big influence on me when I was young because he was (and still is) a big gamer.

I was 8 years old when I visited an Arcade and discovered that fantastic game called Pong, the year ? 1972.

Honestly don't remember haha.

I think I saw demos in Walmart or something and I thought the games looked neat.

And old Atari 2600 that was in my house, it belonged to my uncle and we use to play some games every once in a while, i personally loved Moon Patrol and Joust, it was 1989 if i recall correctly and i was 4 at that time, since i liked the Atari so much, my mom brought me for Christmas a NES...and the cycle was complete from that day.

Really interesting thread. I've been gaming for as long as I can remember, and have been wondering what started it all:

I got into gaming because of my older brother. And my older brother got into gaming because of my older nephews. And they got into gaming because of my uncle. My uncle was a teacher at university who gave class about computer technology. So he always had a powerful PC at home.

I remember my earliest gaming on Commodore 64, which me and my brother got from our dad. And on NES, which I used to play regularly at friends.
But what really got me into gaming was SNES and PC. I had so much fun playing Super Mario World, NBA Jam and Donkey Kong Country 3 with my brother and friends.

All of that was just a way to pass time for me, really. What really made this my favourite hobby were 2 PC games.

I remember going to a PC shop with my dad, and I could choose one game (for my birthday or something). I had some LEGO games for my PC (a Medieval one and Rockraiders) and they were alright. But nothing special.

There were like a dozen games in that PC shop. And about 5 of them were copies of "Half Life GOTY edition"... So I got that game. And it absolutely blew me away. Enjoyed that game from start to finish. I've probably finished that game two dozen times over the years. When I activated it on Steam it also came with Day of Defeat, which is another game that absolutely got me hooked.

Another game I remember very fondly was Age of Empires 1. I remember almost everyone having that demo. Whenever I went to a friends house we used to play that game on PC. Either the demo version or the full game.

My family had a lot of gamers already. Father brought every Console he could, so I can enjoy my childhood. Even though Atari 2600 was way before my time, it was the first gaming platform that I ever used to play games. It was already lying around in our home. I spent most of my childhood playing on Nintendo Consoles followed by SEGA's.

Your story is a lot like mine. I also started gaming on Atari 2600, even though it released before my time. It was lying around in our home already when I first used it (I was 5 I think).

It was back in 2000 , that I played some games on my friend's PS1 . Crash Bandicoot , Konami's PES and Xena were first games we played and god they were awesome .
After that I played some games on my brother's PC , Unfortunately I don't recall the names .
Back then I was a big Sci Fi fan , I loved Star wars , Star trek and I used to read all kinds of Comics , books and also science books . you can tell how excited I felt when I saw Halo . So my dad bought Xbox in 2004 along with Halo 2 . Since then games been my hobby and as I remember I was always playing them and I still do .

My Dad bought an Interstate console in 1976, I'd have been 5 or 6, then came the Arcade game era and I've been hooked since.

I've always loved gaming, not just video games but table top, board games and pen and paper RPG's, I grew up with the classics.

Some of my earliest memories involve me in a small room which I think was an oversized closet, or maybe even an unused pantry, that had a small tv in it with an NES with all the fixings. My mom bought it for the kids, but she played Dr. Mario on it all the time.

We also had most of the recognizable NES games like Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tetris, Megaman, 1942, Gun.Smoke, etc.

We also had a Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo at some point before I could even have had my first memories, but I specifically recall the NES. I played both those consoles way more as a kid than the NES when I could finally hold a controller and play a game by myself.