How Young?

[voor]

I was just wondering how young ya'll were when ya'll started gaming?  I was about 10 I think (my first system was a NES), and being a father now, I'm reluctant to let my child get into it at too young an age....(I think I saw a pic of an 18 month old playing a wii).

 

Anyway, my spouse and I decided that we would allow her to have a system, but handheld only.  I'm glad about this, as they are less consuming and expensive.

[feilong801]

When I was born, my father was in the arcade business. He had about 30 arcades of varying size in the Northwest Ohio area. Sadly, the video game bust of 1984 caused him to get out of that business completely.

 

As such, I have some pretty far reaching memories of old coin ops. I was born in 1980, so I was probably around 3 years old when I have the memories of the arcades.

 

I also remember playing my neighbor's Atari 2600 before I even started going to public school.

 

However, real home console gaming didn't start until I was 6, when Santa got me a NES and Zelda

 

-Rob

[Alienblue]

I am probably THE oldest gamer on here. I was born wayyyy back when the world was young and videogames were a twinkle in Nolan Bushnells eye (1966). During my chilhood years, I was bummed because I loved GAMES but never had anyone to play with. I played solitaire with actual physical playing cards (I know 30 versions of the game), and would play chess with myself.

However, when I first heard about videogames- in high scool, 1981- I was an outsider, not into sports or anything other kids were into so I figured I would not like Videogames either! Then one fateful day my older sister (I'm actually the YOUNGEST in my family by 10 years!) got me to try ASTEROIDS. I was mesmerized! I now had an opponent-the MACHINE!

I've told the story before of how my mom then got me a Coleco TANK game, then portable pac-man, and finally I got a 2600 myself from money I earned on a summer job. That was 1982 and I have had SOME system ever since then- I have seen every era from dedicated pong and tank games (before asteroids I did try Pong and Tank mid-70's but they were two player...) to 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, Hame compters, NES, 16-bit, 32-bit, all the handhelds... I've seen it all. I still believe the "fun factor" of games peaked with 16 and 32 bit and has kinda gone downhill from there.. that is why DS is my "main" mordern system!

Okay, long story but I'm OLD and you asked!

[Edward M]

About 2.  In other words I'm a lifelong gamer.  I have brothers who are 10 years older than me, and we had an NES in the house so I got into Duck Hunt and Mario and Double Dragon 2 early in life.

[Sudz1]

I think the first 'videogame' I remember seeing/playing was the old Gun Fight arcade game (Midway, 1975) down at the local mall when I used to live in California.  I probably was about 7 or 8 at the time, having been born in 1969.  Eventually my parents bought a Pong machine from Sears, with 4 wicked games - Pong, Hockey, Tennis, and Soccer.  These were pretty much all the exact same game but with slightly different rules.  That was probably 1980 or so.  I'd say within a year or two they bought us an Atari 2600 for Christmas which I played quite a bit of.  I really don't think my love of videogames really started though until I got my Commodore64; it was the games I played on that system that ended up hooking my forever, eating all of my spare time and turning me into the reclusive hermit wearing tissue boxes on his feet that I am today.
Sudz

[a1]

I must have been 2 or 3 when I started playing Super Mario Bros.

[voor]

I guess my question now is: 

 

(1) "How old do you think kids today need to be before they are allowed to start playing video games?"

 

(2) Also, because of the nature of today's games (very different from mario bros.), does that affect your thoughts?  For instance, I personally enjoy DS games mroe than anything else and have decided that my child can have a handheld (probably around age 8), but nothing else.

[Zenzerotron]

Fairly poor growing up...........

I was born in 1976

Got my Atari 2600, with Pac-man and Combat bundled in, for xmas of 1984. You can thank the great videogame crash, my parents could afford it!

Anywho..I was born in 76, and I got my first system in 84, I was born in Nov........you do the math.....all you Jaguar owners out there.......DO THE MATH!

[J.M. Vargas]

I was 8 or 9 back in 1981 or '82 (I forget) when my Dad, who had divorced my Mom back in '78 and moved to the United States (I was in my homeland of El Salvador at the time), sent by mail an Atari 2600 VCS system with a handful of games ('Kangaroo,' 'Skiing,' 'Jungle Hunt' and others I forget) without me asking for any of them because I didn't even knew videogames existed.   I became popular overnight with my neighbors and school classmates (Dad sent a few more games that I did ask for) until some other kid on my block received an Atari 5200 and everybody started going there instead (but wouldn't let me go play there... bastards!).   I didn't own another videogame system (even though I played NES at friends/relatives' homes here and there) until 1991 when I bought an Atari Lynx, and then another break until late 1994 when I bought a 3DO system with 'Madden,' 'Shockwave' and 'Road Rash.' 

 

Been buying/playing every console/portable videogame system ever since except for the Wii and PlayStation 3, which for some reason just don't get me the least bit excited about dropping cash for them.  Maybe at age 34 I've already turned into a prune!

[Anayo1]

I was born in 1990. The first game I ever played was DOOM on my dad's old DOS computer, and I was 4 or 5 then. I played a lot of other stuff on that old machine, too: Lemmings, Commander Keen, and Duke Nukem 3D namely (with adult mode turned OFF.)

A little later a family friend generously gave me an NES with several games, among which included Super Mario 3 (one of the best Nintendo games ever). I mostly forgot about the old DOS computer and had all kinds of mushroom kingdom-related adventures. On Christmas of 95, though, I got a Sega Genesis. For about three years following THAT, I had hours of fun with Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Vectorman, Urban Strike, and some other games I rented from Blockbuster back in the day when game rentals weren't so @#$! overpriced: Ecco the Dolphin, Earthworm Jim II, Sonic 2, etc.

On Birthday of '98 I got a Nintendo Sixty-FOOUURR! (Sorry, I saw a vid of the Nintendo 64 kid as I was typing this.) I didn't exactly freak out screaming and yelling like the aforementioned kid (I had the flu or something and I felt like crap), but I did get to enjoy the likes of Banjo Kazooie, Super Mario 64, Turok, Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, 007: the World is not Enough, F-Zero X, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. I also stayed up until 1:00 AM playing multiplayer deathmatch on James Bond Goldeneye with my first-person-shooter-loving dad on my birthday that following year, in 1999.

Um... discovered some video game collector website called "Gamegrandpas" in 2002-ish. Gained a wolfish taste for video game collecting thereafter. Got a Gamecube in 2003.  Metroid Prime, Super Smash Bros. Melee, etc. Since then I've acquired, sold, and given away maybe a dozen different gaming consoles and games. I don't generally like keeping gaming systems or software unless they give me profound enjoyment. If I get something and don't enjoy it, have games for it, or have the console for playing it on, I just sell it on eBay. Currently I have and enjoy a Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Playstation, Gamecube, Gameboy Advance, and PC on which I play Duke Nukem 3D, Half-Life, and a decent assortment of Sega Genesis ROMs.