A question to all girl gamers...

[Mishi]

Nothing really got me into it.

When I was a kid my parents only bought me educational computer games, but I always wanted to play videogames. So when I got a little money of my own, that's what I spent it on. And that's the story.

 

[SavingPrincess]

Lets see when I was growing up we got a nintendo. (I was about 4-5) and all I remember was that I was crazy for duck hunt. I would play it all the time and we went threw 2 guns. I would even leave my grandma's house to go across the street to the bowling ally to play the arcade games. Then as new systems came out I got them for christmas up until the PS2. Where then I work my butt off to get multi systems. Now I just cant stop playing games. I love them so much <3

Haha, the way you phrase it makes it sound like drugs.

Sooo... shhhh... we don't want some politician using you as an example. On that note, it amazes me how long the original NES was a viable platform even while the Super Nintendo was around. Judging from your profile, you'd have literally first owned the NES ten years into it's life cycle. Weird thing is I hear that all the time.

OT: In the generation of people in their mid-to-late 20's and beyond, often times whether or not a "girl" got into games had to do as much with her parents as much as anything else. Since a child's opportunity to "get into things" in the days before the internet was limited to what their life-situation exposed them to, sometimes parents just didn't want their "little girls" to play video games. I remember my best friend growing up and while the dad and son played games, often times they would encourage his baby sister as she got to the same age to not play games and instead do other things; something I haven't heard mentioned yet.

The more appropriate question cannot be asked in this venue.

"Why, as a girl, have you not gotten into video games?"

That would provide you with far more insightful answers, as likely the reasons girls got into games are similar to the boys.

 

[QueenWren]

My parents used to play loads of point-and-click games when I was little but I didn't really start until a friend lent me a PS1 in high school along with FFIX. I played it for 36 hours straight that weekend, I've been hooked ever since.

 

[Britnaa]

I honestly can't remember my FIRST experience with video games, but it was either my cousin introducing me to Duck Hunt/Super Mario Brothers, or the fact that in my neighborhood the most "hip" thing to have was a N64.

I remember we all used to gather around with our gameboys and play Poke'mon Red and Blue, or gather to play Jet Force Gemini, Golden Eye, or Super Smash Brothers.

From there, I begged my parents to buy me SOME sort of gaming system, which resulted in my PSone. From there...I just bought a crapload of games/game systems.

 

[bitemarx]

My cousin gave my brother and I his Sega Genesis one year for Christmas.... And so I started gaming playing A LOT of Madden and almost stopped playing video games forever. Then eventually, we got a PS1 and I started playing other games and got hooked.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Rofl, a little blonde girl in a dress cackling whenever she head shot'd a monster in Doom. Yeah, I guess the image is a little unexpected but I had a great childhood nonetheless.

I remember when DOOM didn't care where you hit the monsters.

Low-resolution sprite graphics FTW.

Let's see ... Killer Gorilla, Defender, Rocket Raid, Snapper, Monsters, Asteroids and ... er ... there was another but I can't remember it. Anyone guessed the system yet? Then there were Thrust and Repton and some others and Aviator. It took me a long time to learn to handle that clumsy old fighter and longer to learn to hit those locusts, but then I ruled the skies.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

I used to play Crash and the first GTA with my uncles alot. Then i got a PS for my birthday.

 

[Jinxzy]

Lets see when I was growing up we got a nintendo. (I was about 4-5) and all I remember was that I was crazy for duck hunt. I would play it all the time and we went threw 2 guns. I would even leave my grandma's house to go across the street to the bowling ally to play the arcade games. Then as new systems came out I got them for christmas up until the PS2. Where then I work my butt off to get multi systems. Now I just cant stop playing games. I love them so much <3

Haha, the way you phrase it makes it sound like drugs.

Sooo... shhhh... we don't want some politician using you as an example. On that note, it amazes me how long the original NES was a viable platform even while the Super Nintendo was around. Judging from your profile, you'd have literally first owned the NES ten years into it's life cycle. Weird thing is I hear that all the time.

OT: In the generation of people in their mid-to-late 20's and beyond, often times whether or not a "girl" got into games had to do as much with her parents as much as anything else. Since a child's opportunity to "get into things" in the days before the internet was limited to what their life-situation exposed them to, sometimes parents just didn't want their "little girls" to play video games. I remember my best friend growing up and while the dad and son played games, often times they would encourage his baby sister as she got to the same age to not play games and instead do other things; something I haven't heard mentioned yet.

The more appropriate question cannot be asked in this venue.

"Why, as a girl, have you not gotten into video games?"

That would provide you with far more insightful answers, as likely the reasons girls got into games are similar to the boys.

"Why, as a girl, have you not gotten into video games?" Well by my earlier statement I think I would be on drugs. (kidding)

I dunno, I guess as I grew up with it more and did more "boy stuff". I can tell if I didn't have (or was into them) video games I would probably understand make-up and "doing you hair". I kinda grew up as the boy my dad wanted and not so much of the girl my mom wanted. NES was the cheapest. I think we got my uncles NES when her got Super Nintendo. But I remember Sega I got it for my birthday, with sonic already there and my dad trying to get me to play madden. There was also Bubsy my favorite, earth worm jim, ren and stimpy, toe jam and earl, lion king (the game from hell), little mermaid, and the animaniacs.

But yes I guess you can say games are my drug. I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[Fappy]

This thread has inspired me to go to a rap forum and post a thread asking what got white guys into rap....

Anyway most the girl gamers I know got into because of an older brother or their father/uncle.

 

[Kiriona]

I don't remember how I got into gaming. But I seem to remember playing my first game in Daycare when I was in first grade. That fateful day, I rare, female gamer was born. One who gets so addicted that she puts off eating and sleeping just to keep playing.

 

[Weaver]

I just always liked playing games. I mean, I was playing the first Doom and Duke Nukem side by side with Jump Start (does anyone remember those games?)

Such games defined my childhood!
Did you play any of the Lucas Arts point and clicks? (Monkey Island, full throttle, day of the tentacle?). What about one must fall, or Raptor: call of the shadows?

I spent FOREVER just playing the last two over and over and over again. Man life was good back then... Old PC gaming is still the pinnacle of fantastic titles IMO.

 

[Dr. Paine]

When I was five, I ended up hanging out in one of those little babysitting areas in a grocery store. There were some PS1s set up, and I sat down and started playing Spyro the dragon. No older brothers, and I was actually the reason we got a PlayStation and my dad got FFVII xD No older brothers or anything to speak of. Three years later, I moved onto Twisted Metal 3. (I also vaguely remember playing Tetris on a vacation when I was 7, however, my memory of that entire trip is hazy because of the painkillers... crushed my right middle finger playing baseball, spent most of the trip just half asleep and playing some Tetris.)

I actually grew up with my dad playing FFVII, and for a while, the only games I was ever able to get were Spyro or FF. As of November '09, I've started getting into FPS games and (finally) the Metroid series.

 

[Zekiran Immortal]

I'm a 42 year old woman and I spent 13 years managing a comic store. 6 before that working for a game, model and rc/model train company. In many ways I guess I've always broken the mold of stereotypical girl. (Got tattoos too, so... yeah.)

I've always played role playing games - tabletop ones - and when I got a pc (which didn't happen until I moved out with my bf around age 20 because we were poor...) I played some ooooold video games. I was very, very good at tetris on my old dos-box. I loved the Xeen games, they were probably the most fun I'd had on a computer aside from just writing which I do every day anyway.

Honestly you can count on just a few fingers the number of games I've really gotten into - not just because I'm likely to find one I really like and *play it to death for years*, but because I just don't have the money or the care to get a console.

I've never owned anything beyond an Atari 2600, and never will. So I'm a PC, not a handheld type. The variety of games available to me still, is stunning.

I like stupid flash games like Momentum Missile Mayhem (looooove it) and popcap things (I wish chuzzle would stop being stupid and play with video ... arg!), hidden object and spot the difference type games to kill time. However, I'm a HUGE fan of City of Heroes - my friends back at the comic store bought me a computer suitable to run it when it first came out in 04 for my birthday - and the game, and several others (none of which I ever played or finished if I opened them... sad I know: myst3 or whatever, enter the matrix (which I should have played but couldn't figure out HOW)) and so I began my 5 year love affair with Paragon. can't afford the sub right now, since I've been out of work for some time. But still I LOVE the game. I jones enough that I pick up trial accounts just to BE there.

And then there's Valve. I think if I liked PVP more, I'd play TF2 a lot, and I really wanted to play L4D, but no money and that PVP thing gets in the way. (I like solo games, odd, because I play City of Heroes and it's an mmo... I play solo there lol.) I fell in love - madly - with Gordon Freeman of Half Life. I don't think I could live too long without my HL games.

I did have to, my hard drive died and my laptop has integrated video which Source won't run on... ARG. but I'm fine. I'm fine and on a new rig, yay.

Anyway... I've always been on the fringe of video games, I play PC games only, because I have a PC only. Oddly enough I've been downloading a lot of mods for Half Life and the one that I most recently played through was the most sensless shoot-em-up fun I've ever had. Love it. But what I really love about the Half Life games is their depth, so any other game has to live up to it, in my opinion, and that's pretty hard.

 

[Lavi]

My bro had an N64 (which I kept). The only two games I played on it when I was very little (like 6) was 007 and Starfox 64.

After that, I bought a shitload of games for it and owned literally every good game you can think of on it. OOT was my childhood ^_^

 

[Legion3321]

Thank god, I'm not a female but I thought this was another "Women are oppressed in gaming thread"

Top work OP for creating a good girl directed thread, I sure am sick of the aforementioned threads.

There are a lot of those kinds of threads here?

Well there was this point where like 5 of them cropped up in a very short space of time.

Wow... didn't know so many guys looked down on girl gamers.

Guys dont look down on women gamers, at least guy gamers dont, and as sexcist as this sounds women just assume we think they are less then we are.

I know a lot of women and whenever they do something wrong and i call them up on it they start getting abusive and saying im sexcist. But when i treat them like one of the fellas they get very, very angry/upset.

 

[Veleste]

My brothers would buy the latest console, or keyboard I guess as you can't really call the Commodore 64 or Amiga a console, and then I'd get the hand me downs. First memories of games are the Aladdin game on red floppy disks, a skiing game on the commodore and Quake.

It was only something I did when it was raining until the playstation and I got into Final Fantasy, GTA and Armour Core so it became a regular weekend activity. Then it wasn't until Morrowind for the Xbox that I actively got into the gaming scene outside of my living room and ended up buying the magazines, going online and eventually going on to study Game Design and work in the industry. Man that game blew me away.

Gaming actually shaped quite a bit of my life, better thank my brother for the second hand Commodore back in 1991

 

[neilsaccount]

Hm, well I remember growing up being mesmerized every time my father played our old DreamCast. I insisted that he only play it with me around. Of course, I remember getting nightmares from Soul Reaver. I had to play copious amounts of the old Lion King game on the SEGA until I felt my innocence returning ;o;
However, it wasn't until about...5 or 6 years ago that I got really into it. After a few years, finally got my first PS2, along with Kingdom Hearts. Soon after ditched the safety of Disney games and ventured into the survival horror realm, where I've happily lived for the past couple years. c:

does it annoy you that on the the left side there for your title it says paperboy and not papergirl? it would make more sense jk. i know quite a few girl gamers though and they just got into gaming the same way any of us guys do, really simple so no need for explanation, im going to sleep now

 

[Blair Bennett]

In all honesty, it was my cousin. As a teenage boy in the '90's, and with me being about 5-7, we'd go over for family gatherings and play video games. That was what reunions were to me, I'd get to see my grandparents and my aunts and uncles and that, and my brother and I would play Duckhunt and Super Mario Bros. and such with him. After that, my brother and I finally managed to bully my father into buying us a console and now here I am.

 

[neilsaccount]

firstly, spyro and twisted metal are both awesome games and secondly, you had playstaions in your grocery store? thats amazing!