Poll: When did you first get into video games?

[AgedGrunt]

In the late 80s, but started out with Commodore and Intellivision, which are early 80s. If gaming stayed like that, I don't think most of us would have stayed gamers for long. Back then, that was just something to mess around with.

 

[The Jovian]

I remember playing Command & Conquer, StarCraft, Oddworld, and a bunch of other games as early as 1998. I've been a PC gamer since I was 3 years old and now that I have a fancy new gaming rig I rarely touch my Xbox.

 

[NPC009]

80s. My mum and ad had a Commodore64 and let me play my first game on it when I was three. The games were pretty neat, but what I found most fascinating was booting the system and making things run on it. Those commandlines were like magic spells!

After that my cousin and I both got a Game Boy soon after it was released. Good times.

 

[DementedSheep]

I'v pretty much always played games and since I was born in 1992 I going to say late 90s.

 

[CaitSeith]

I've been playing since so young that I was practically born with a Joystick in my hand.

...that didn't sound right, did it? Oh, well. You get the point. Since the times of Atari 2600 and Colecovision.

 

[Leon Royce]

1996. I was 6. My first game (at least that I can remember) was Tomb Raider. I still love it and its sequel to this day.

Sadly, after 20 years, I'm about done with games. Maybe one or two more, but I'm just not interested.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Difficult to say but I would estimate it would be 86 -87 that they first really started to peak my interest although it wouldnt be till about 1990 or so I started to play them more seriously and I never owned a console until the SNES. I just had a commodore 64 and used to play on other peoples ZX Spectrums, Ataris, Master Systems, Amigas, Acorns, NES etc before that. Also I liked playing in arcade but I was only small so the old man had to accompany me. He had and has no real interest in games but he liked Outrun so we used to play that he would push the pedals and I would steer was great fun.

lol looking at the poll seems im slowly becoming the minority most people never gamed when Nintendo was top dog it seemed and especially Atari.

 

[FPLOON]

I was the mid-90's with them old MAC computers filled with educational games (JumpStart), promotional demos (The Lion King; Peter Pan; Arthur), The Oregon Trail, and Lemmings...

Other than that, it wasn't until the early 00's when I started delving into video games a lot more... So, there's that...

 

[Keoul]

1990s
First console was a famicon (basically an NES), and I was lucky enough to have one of those "50 in 1" type games so I got to play stuff like excite bike, mario, some weird penguin skater game, popeye, and a few others.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Since I was old enough to sit at a PC and play something, I think I was around 5 or even 4, so mid-late 80's. Probably Dig Dug or something on my dad's XT. That thing was equipped with a massive 20mb hard disk, can you believe that. When I got older I wrote epic stories on it, and printed them on our dot-matrix printer that was loud as shit and shook the floor when it worked.

Still remember games like karate ka and stuff, man those were epic.

 

[lunavixen]

I started playing when I was about 5ish, so about 1995, been collecting video games since then too. First console was an Atari 2600 and a Mega Drive, I still have the Gamegear and games (all working)

 

[NeutralDrow]

Either 1990 or 1991 (probably the latter). Playing the Gold Box CRPGs (both Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance) with my father. I'd been playing collections of minigames before then (I particularly remember Army, Spinwall, and Bananoid), my first full game was Hillsfar on the PC.

 

[lowtech redneck]

I was born in the late seventies, and while I played a few video games before that (I even remember owning a stand-alone pac-man system), I didn't became a big fan until I played Nintendo at a friend's house in the mid 80's. I'm largely a retro gamer (and I STILL say 2D gameplay is usually better!), but to this day I don't really like anything older than the NES games.

 

[lowtech redneck]

Still remember games like karate ka and stuff, man those were epic.

Heh, I was just remembering that game! It wasn't enough to compete with playing outside yet, but it definitely made an impression.

 

[Hawki]

First game I ever played was Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Sega Master System, first games I owned were Sonic the Hedgehog and Double Clutch on the Sega Genesis. or Master Drive and Mega Drive as I knew them back then. This would have been in the early 90s.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Late 1990s. Born in 1994 and probably played around on PS1 with a few games and demo discs around 1998 and 1999 or something. It's kind of difficult for me to recall specific games but Legend of Dragoon always sticks around in my mind, as a game I first watched my oldest brother play. I ended up playing myself not soon after, though I never finished it. It's still sitting on my Vita for when I get around to it, since I don't feel it was right that I didn't finish it as a kid. Since then, games have always been a staple of my leisure time. Also had access to the SNES, NES, and Genesis at my grandparents' house. So that's where I got my 'retro' games fix. Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Super Mario Bros., Super Metroid, Mega Man X, Link to the Past, etc.

 

[fenrizz]

I was born in 1987, so around 90-92.

Not sure when , but I got a Sega Master System II for christmas one year, and that was the beginning.
Not that I had not played games before that though.

 

[siebje]

My first gaming memory is playing Digger on our first computer -an 8088- somewhere in the early 80's. I must've been about 3 or 4.
Never looked back

 

[likalaruku]

My Gamerness grew in short stages.

1987 - Mac II, NES, Commodore. (Educational games, Duck Hunt, Clay Shoot, Mario, Tetris, Carmen Sandiego, Paper Boy, Oregon Trail, Wishbringer).

1994 - Sega Genesis. (Pretty much played nothing but Sonic & Bubsy).

1998-2001 - PS1, N64, but only at friend's houses. At home I played Sim City 3000 Unlimited, Heroes of Might & Magic 4, The Sims, & Furcadia.

2006 - Introduced to RPGs when coworker gave me a free copy of Dungeon Siege. Introduced to MMOs when I got a free disc for Grenado Espada. Started buying PC RPGs I missed out on years before.

2014 - Finally heel-turned on Sega & learned to warship Nintendo. Bought a 3DS. Regretted getting a Sega Genesis in the 90s instead of a SNES. Lazy ass still hasn't played a single classic Nintendo RPG, despite knowing about emulation & which games were the most recommended.

 

[McElroy]

We didn't have any games at home until the growing interest I got elsewhere brought them in. Though my dad has said he played Street Fighter II once in France in 1992. Anyway, must've been in 1996 when Lemmings and Commander Keen kicked in for good.