What is the minimum age of Gaming?

[bam13302]

computer gaming, no minimum age, computers tend to allows those to use it that are old enough
as soon as my kid can install a GPU, he can start gaming
i probably started gaming around 5-7, used to love watching my dad play the old mechwarrior games
i also remember installing my first graphics card
and installing my first os
ah memories
wow, that is incredibly sad

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

I started gaming when i was 8. But i dont think there should be a minimum age of gaming. Parents should, however, monitor their kids when they´re playing.

 

[joemegson94]

I started when i was about 4 or 5, which is ok, but i don't think kids should spend as much time on games as teenagers etc. do. It's not healthy when you're that young.

 

[ajofflight]

To be frank, I'm sick of all the little children I hear playing Left 4 Dead. I myself never got any M-rated games until I was 17. However, I believe that the first games I ever played were Pokemon Red and Blue, and I was only 5 at the time.

OT: I guess whenever the parent feels it is appropriate, though I am sick of 8-year olds playing M-rated games.

 

[Ham_authority95]

As long as it's okay with the parents, kids can start gaming at 3 months old for all I care...

 

[RhanathShadowhand]

Thanks to Gudrests,I'm the same, except the sister part. I could get it working by myself. So just quoting:

Yepp same here....played the nes with my dad....and alone if me and my sister could get it working. im only 18 so the NES was old when we were playing it lol

 

[icyneesan]

I started playing Heroes of Might and Magic when I was 4 with my Niece and Nephew (My sister is incredibly older) and I grasped majority of the combat (Build a lot of god damn dragons) and other game mechanics easily. Kids now a days don't though for some reason so I'd put the gaming age to when they can reproduce which I believe is roughly around 12 for boys, and 7 for girls.

 

[bulbasaur765]

I started at age 4, spending most of my time on the couch watching my older brother playing Legend of Zelda, TMNT, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. At 10, I was playing Pokemon Blue and Banjo-Kazooie.

My guess is that he should start with the simple games such as Sonic 2 and then work his way up towards more complex games. Also, NEVER give him a handheld console such as a DS until 10 or 12 because no matter how many precautions you take he WILL break it or lose it.

 

[C95J]

I started gaming at 6.

Now that I'm 21, I wish the minimum age of gaming was 16.

Why?

OT: I started around 4-5, but really it depends on whether you are sensible enough, and if you can read/understand things to a degree. Of course the games age rating also comes into account as well. If you have good judgement and are being brought up correctly by your parents, then you can start gaming.

 

[Gudrests]

Thanks to Gudrests,I'm the same, except the sister part. I could get it working by myself. So just quoting:

Yepp same here....played the nes with my dad....and alone if me and my sister could get it working. im only 18 so the NES was old when we were playing it lol

yeahhh we had to pit the game in just enough and then like slam it down but the game had to be practally hanging on and...just...UGHHH i never got it to work...still cant. she can tho...and i still beat her down in Bad News Baseball....sooo im happy

 

[TehCookie]

I was like 1 or 2 when I started gaming. My parents put a controller in my hands before I could remember anything. However I wasn't very good at games, I loved Sonic 2 because my older brother would play as Sonic and get through the levels and I would be Tails so I couldn't die. It was awesome during bosses because I just had to do kamikaze attacks while my bro dodges the boss, and eventually we would win.

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

I started gaming when I was about 3 or 4 - my first games were platformers and a paint program. Pretty simple. Portal is vastly, vastly too complex because it requires you to listen to instructions. At 3, that's like the worst thing you can ask of them. Most phone games are a little too abstract as well - like say in mario, the first one. You have a simple goal, 'get to the far right hand side of the map and save the princess' and a simple instruction. 'don't get hit' so it's easy to get. In snake, you've got 'get food, grow'. It's not complex, but it's more abstract. Since this is your nephew, you're an uncle, and that gives you special privileges to be the guy who does the fun shit with his nephew. Unless you take care of him a substantial portion of your time, don't worry about him doing some gaming with you - just give him games he can grasp, with a concrete goal but simple mechanics.

I didn't think of Snake. That's not a bad suggestion. Yeah it's abstract; but maybe....just maybe....
I should clarify that i didn't in any way expect him to understand Portal. I meant it had the most basic control scheme as far as all the games i have went. i expected him to be able to grasp the WASD (once told, of course) and then just walk around and shoot some prtals and shit not actually figure out a puzzle.

But alas, he couldn't press more than one keyboard button at once, even when i showed him. He just doesn't have the hand-eye coordination for that at this stage.

Hang on........why not....... Pong? what'da think? move bar, hit dot. can't get any simpler than the literal Grandfather of gaming?

yeah pong would be a good starter, that's what i started with. try directing him to addictinggames.com or jgames.ch , they have a lot of fun easy games that'll help develope his hand-eye-coordination. just make sure he steers clear of thing-thing arena, might be a lil too violent and bloody for his age...

 

[John the Gamer]

between 4 and 8 seems a good enough age. They just need parental control until they're 11-16 years old, and they can decide on their own(or should be smart enough to do so)

 

[Hman121]

I began at the age of 3 on the SNES, and it was great for me. Now that I have a little sister who just turned 4, I'm letting her game with two classics: SUper Mario 64 and Pokemon Stadium.

Generally, kids should start gaming at age 8 or 9, but if people are there to supervise and help out, then they can game from 4-6.

 

[Tsaba]

Would it be fair to say I actually don't remember? But, to be on the safe side I'll say around 5.

 

[KiKiweaky]

We had a sega mega drive when I was young, like really young I didnt really have much interest in it. I did like to watch my brothers play it in the evening. Once we got a game called syndycate wars I realised I actually liked them and began playing them. I doubt I was much older than 6 or 7 at the time.

I found it quite easy to wrap my head around the concept of most of the simpler games I was playing at the time. Some of the more difficult ones took a bit longer for me to get used to but here I am almost 15 years later still playing them \o/

 

[fingerbang143]

at 6 on the Game qube i've been 1337 evar since

 

[Besken]

I personally started gaming when I was 2 or 3, though I did have the luxury of having the arcade centipede game in my house as one of my first gaming devices, which literally is just roll the ball and mush the button. (I had Sonic 2 as well, albeit that is more complicated)

 

[Rad Party God]

I started gaming since 4 years old. And with nothing more and nothing less than a NES and a Commodore Amiga.