How Did You Become a Gamer?

[Skeleon]

My father brought an old Atari PC home, black and white screen, that you could play Ballerburg and a few other games on. Imagine how revolutionary the 386-PC seemed after that! Actual colours!

The first game I owned? Bought with my own pocket money and all? Warcraft 2. I had played the demo way too many times and finally wanted to buy it from my allowance to know how it continued. I think I was around 10 years old at the time.

 

[Palmerama]

My dad brought home our first PC. It was a Compaq with Windows 3.1! We had a floppy disc with a pac-man & Space Invaders clones on, golf and chess. Me & brother played them to death. It was how I learnt how to play chess. I also found Commander Keen on there as well.

Then for my 4th birthday my parents got me a NES with Super Mario Bros. 3. The rest is history.

 

[Dair1]

For me it was a gameboy and the game was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. I can't remember the other game I had with it but mario was better and I basically played it when I could until I got my PS1 on my 10th birthday.
I remember being able to complete it without dying once. Not sure how much of an accomplishment that is but I impressed myself with the feat none the less.

 

[Korenith]

I was bitten by a radioactive Mario All Stars cartridge and so began a life of virtual heroics and villainy!

 

[mistahzig1]

Old school here.

1st game: a PONG console

When I became a gamer? When my father literally put me in the HUGE Atari Games bargain bin. I was SWIMMING in game boxes, frantically picking games to buy at a ridiculous price. Found my all-time fav Atari game at the bottom of the bin: Bump 'n Jump. LOVED crashing other cars while racing. I felt like such a badass

 

[Feraswondervahnn]

I was three I do believe. My parents bought Me and my Brother a Megadrive.
It had a few games with it. I'm pretty sure the first one I played was Sonic the Hedgehog but I also had Global Gladiators, Columns and Super Hang On. I loved those games, but I think it was Mega Bomberman that REALLY got me into it. I'd spend hours playing that game single player, and then more hours destroying my friends in Multiplayer, I LOVED Bomberman!

I decided to impress all the sexy gamer dudes, obviously.

Nah, just kidding.
My parents got me and my sisters a Megadrive when I was but a wee kidlet (seriously I was about 3 or 4 maybe). I remember we had a few games, but I can only remember the names of some of them, since I was playing it when I was so little.

I remember having this Aladdin game, and me and my sisters would fight over who could be the girl on Streets of Rage.
We were all very obsessed with the Megadrive and always fighting about who would play, but over time my sisters kind of lost interest in playing games, while my interest just grew. I've never NOT played games.

Oh yeah, Columns!

I freaking loved Columns.

Columns was freaking awesome!!! I remember getting up one morning to find my Dad still awake blasting that game!

 

[Arnoxthe1]

DOS games (specifically Raptor, Tyrian, and Hexen. (Yes, Hexen.)) introduced me to gaming but I didn't really get into it until I got my N64. When I did though, I was never so enamored with anything in my life during that time.

 

[ForumSafari]

My first game was Megatron on DOS

http://takegame.com/others/htm/megatron.htm

At least I think it was, I was 7 at the time and got bought a few games in quite quick succession. I played it on my old 386 PC running DOS, that and Goodbye Galaxy, Solar Winds, God of Thunder, Overkill and others. The final games I got for that PC were Wolfenstein 3d and Doom.

Solar Winds

Excellent game for the time, do you know if there's anywhere you can get it still?

 

[Valkaris]

I was probably eight or nine when my dad brought Age of Mythology back from a business trip. I had never seen a game on disk before (just browser games at that point), but I immediately fell in love with games and gaming. Ten years on Age of Mythology is still one of my favorite games, along with the rest of the Age of Empires series.

 

[MeisterKleister]

1. Like almost everyone else, I became a gamer because I got bitten by another gamer who in turn got it from having unprotected sex.

2. We had a borrowed SNES and games and I remember playing a lot of Mario Paint and Turtles in Time on it. The first game that I remember actively buying actually wanting to own it is Pokémon Red Edition in Spanish (we were on vacation) for Gameboy. Enjoyed it a lot.

 

[likalaruku]

Not really sure at which point in my life I concidered myself gamer. These were my stages up to age 25.

*Apple II: Wish Bringer, Memory Match, some math game. It may have been B&W, but the graphics were superb for 80s games.

*Dentist's waiting room had Duck Hunt & Clay Shooter. Best dentist ever.

*Kiley had a NES. Introduced me to Mario & Tetris. We played Donky Kong & pinball at King Skate Country, Frogger at Dairy Queen.

*Elementary school: Number Munchers, Oregon Trail, Paper Boy, some other math game, Carmen Sandiego, Lights Out, & Elevator Action. Got to play after school the first few years & during recess the latter.

Jr. High: Delmy & I had Sega Genesis & borrowed from eachother. She had Aladdin & Lion King, I had all the Sonics, Bubsy 2, & Warrior of Rome. Major Video rented video games.

High School: Shanna played PC, Sega Channel, N64, & PS1. Introduced to Ocarina of Time, some Star Wars game, FF7, Goldeneye 64, some funny wrestling game that could play by itself, some Tony Hawk games, Castlevania, Sim City 3000 Unlimited, The Sims, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, & Heroes of Might & Magic 3 & 4. We also played at the casino arcades a lot. First MMO: Furcadia. Didn't play another till Granado Espada.

College: Played almost nothing but Sims, Sim City 3kU, & HoM&M4 for 2 years.

First Job: Coworker let me borrow Dungeon Siege for a Week. Bought it & it's expansion, subscribed to every gaming mag there was, & bought the Myst set, the Diablo set, American McGee's Alice, Neverwinter Nights Diamond, 1503 AD, The Settlers 2-5, Age of Empires 1 & 2, Age of Mythology, the Harry Potter games, & the Baldur's Gate set with my first few paychecks. Serious Sam 2 came free with my first graphics card.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Congrats OP; good thread for 1000.

I don't remember the first game; I was a baby and my uncles had the Atari & Intellivision. I remember playing pitfall, d&d, and Utopia (an early competitive version of Sim City). They later got a Colecovision which was fun but my little hands couldn't work the controller properly.

I didn't get my own game until my dad got me a launch NES (as a resident of NYC we were some of the first to get them apparently) with ROB the robot, Gyromite, and Duck Hunt. The first game I got which didn't come with it was Super Mario Bros, an iconic game if there ever was one.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

Solar Winds

Excellent game for the time, do you know if there's anywhere you can get it still?

I nostalgia-downloaded it years ago (I don't have that copy anymore), I think it was from Home of the Underdogs, but that site went under, didn't it? Otherwise maybe try Abandonia. Or suggest it to GOG and cross your fingers real hard.

 

[Asmundr]

1: A friend of the family had a son that owned a console. They lived out in Dilley, Texas so I only ever got to play a handful of times. First game played then was Armored Core and it introduced me to video games. What got me into games full on was The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

2: The first game I ever had was some fighting game that I could play on my Gameboy Pocket (both loaned to me by the smae guy mentioned above). Technically the first game I owned though was Pokemon Yellow.

 

[Fireaxe]

I think the point where I became a "gamer" was when I was introduced to the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I used to take my SNES in my pack on the bus from one parents house to the others to play that game.

 

[Edl01]

There isn't really a story behind it. My sister owned a playstation, I played on it sometimes. Then my Mum bought me a gameboy with a strange game called "pokemon", it's rather obscure I'm sure you've never heard of it. Honestly it's nothing interesting.
As for why I started gaming on PC, it is really simple, Youtube. My computer and my Xbox where in different rooms, and the Xbox 360 didn't have Youtube on it back then. So I started playing games on the PC instead and listening to youtube videos in the background.

 

[TehCookie]

My parents put a controller in my hands before I could remember, and I've been gaming since. My dad was a huge gamer as well, and it's really funny seeing modern gamers act like fanboyism or elitist are new things.

 

[michael87cn]

Born a gamer, will die a gamer.

Been playing games since I can remember. The earliest game would probably be Pac-Man when I was like, 3 or 4 years old. The most memorable early memories would be that of Mario and Zelda on the NES, though.

 

[TheCrapMaster]

It was 15-16 years ago,i was around 9-10, my mom and dad just bought a new computer for the family and i asked my mom if i could buy a computer game for it as we dident have a console and on last computer you could only play chess and the only colours that computer showed was black and orange. We had pretty shitty eletronics at my house so the computer was needed as my two older sisters needed it for school.

I still remember going to the eletronics shop and two computer games in the bin that standed out that i took that my mom bought for me. The games were Mechcommander and warcraft 2. Pretty soon me and my friends hold of diablo 1 and starcraft 1 and i have very found memories of me and my friends playing those over good old dial up internet, and the constant battle when someone wanted to make a phone call.

So from there me and my friends have always been gamers.