How involved in your Gaming hobby was your dad?

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

My Dad was old school hardcore. He beat Ghosts n' Goblins on NES. Arguably the hardest game in NES history (possibly the hardest game period). Metroid, Castlevania 1, 2, 3 and the Genesis version, Contra, SMB 1, 2, 3 and every Sonic for Genesis also fell to his mighty hand.
My Dad is a hardcore legend in my mind and while he doesn't play much of today's games, it doesn't matter. THAT SONOFABITCH BEAT GHOSTS N' FUCKING GOBLINS!

 

[AbstractJuggler]

One of the best memories I have involving Pops and gaming is waking up at about 6 in the morning when I must've been about 6 to find him playing Buck Bumble.
He was on one of the earlier (?) levels where you've got to fight like three Weevils to get to the next part, which neither me or my sister could do, and I'll be damned if I didn't sit there and watch him do it.
I mean, he beat the Weevils like a pro, but then got absolutely demolished by these weird little things that shoot green goop at you. It was a heinous ambush.

 

[80sboy]

Interesting question, my father was the man that got me heavily into gaming as a kid. Although, I was into gaming beforehand, owning an Atari and eventually a Nintendo, but I didn't have that many games. My dad also somehow began to pick up the hobby since he was mostly home as a landlord. Funny enough, he went the other way and got into Sega, and got me into it too. He bought me a Sega Master System, and then a Sega Genesis when it came out. For what ever reason, the man was a Sega guy, and what's also funny is he was pretty old to be getting into gaming period. My dad is part of the silent generation and he was in his 20s during the 1950s. But anyways, he got me into Sega. Then we got a Sega CD and then...yeah! All down hill from there. Eventually we bought that ridiculous expensive Panasonic 3D0 (700 bucks at the time US), and after that, we got completely out of gaming. I didn't get back into it until I was in the Navy, and the Xbox 1 came out. First I bought a PS2 to play PS1 games but...okay, the story can go on and on...but as for the story about my dad and this hobby, that's it.

 

[zarker]

Heavily. Together, we built my first PC for my 5th birthday. From CS LANs with his Army buddies to co-oping DOOM to letting me skip school so I could tank for his ass in EverQuest, my dad has always been into gaming.

Now-a-days he's only really interested in open world PVP like in EVE or DayZ but we still play together occasionally.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

My dad got me my first gaming PC when I was about 11 or 12 and allllll the...legally...acquired...games I could want. Aside from that, there were consoles and, whenever I'd come by for visitation, due to the divorce, I'd get to play co-op with 'em.

Good memories. Coincidentally, I now want to play the PlayStation port of Diablo again.

 

[blueshark217]

He's a pretty serious gamer actually.

After playing Mario for the first time, he swore he would beat every Mario game. He's taken it very seriously, to the point that he's bought every single Nintendo console. We even waited out in the cold on black friday to get a Wii, and we bought a Wii U on launch day. So far, he's beaten up to sunshine, and is halfway through galaxy.

Outside of that, his three other favorite games are The Legend of Zelda for the NES, Command and Conquer Generals (He was pissed that EA isn't making it a proper sequel anymore) and he's pretty proud of our Nazi Zombie Der Riese high score. Its only 33.

 

[GroovySpecs]

My father hated that I played video games. Not only did he think (and still does I assume) that games are "a waste of time and money" but also that gaming wasn't "an appropriate passtime for a young lady"

 

[triggrhappy94]

It's still yesterday here in Cali! Well, 10pm so almost.

OT
My dad plays some of the sports games. I tried getting him into the original Halo and Bioshock. He's an English teacher so I think he'd appreciate Bioshock's literary influence. He gets motion sick by most games though, so those attempts kind of failed.

 

[Fijiman]

He was barely involved in my gaming hobby and still isn't very involved.

 

[PeterMerkin69]

My father was deeply involved in my gaming habits and it accounted for most of the high points in our relationship. My parents bought me my first NES when I was around 3 and they used it more than I did until I was around four or five, at which point we played together constantly. I sometimes played with my mother, too, but she was only into Zelda and a few others. Otherwise we played side-scrolling co-op extensively. In addition to various computers, the NES grew into the SNES and Genesis, the SNES into the N64 and PSX, GCN, PS2... in fact, he bought me a 360 for my birthday about five months before he died because I was only interested in the Wii at that point and, according to him, I didn't have a "real" console. Although after he died I found out from my aunt that he had a DS. Hypocrite!

I rarely think about him anymore to be honest, but when I do feel a twinge of sadness or loss, it's usually because I heard a theme from some game we used to play together.

Back in '89, my dad would buy broken arcade machines, fix them, and set them up in our house. I was only 1 at the time so I couldn't experience it.

My father owned a music/video entertainment business for most of my childhood. Jukeboxes and video poker machines made up the brunt of his business, but there were the odd arcade cabinets, too, and I still have the Pacman, Mrs. Pacman, and Arlington Horse Racing games he kept aside for me.

 

[NeutralDrow]

My dad introduced me to gaming, via the Forgotten Realms Gold Box CRPGs (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, etc.). We played them together, in fact (much as a single-player RPG can be, but I was six, so come on).

He never got as into the hobby beyond that as I did, but he plays casual PC games, and still goes for Wii Sports Resort fairly often.

 

[Palmerama]

My dad is the main reason I play games! When I was about 3-4 he brought home our first PC. It was a Compaq with Windows 3.1 (showing my age now). He had a floppy disk that had chess, golf, space invaders & pac-man on it & me & my brother played those games so much we broke the disk. Then we managed to get Commander Keen for it.

He bought me a NES for my 4th birthday and a Master System for my brothers birthday the following year. I remember him playing Super Mario Bros. 3 and is the only person I know who would jump on every step on a stair case. Its a feat I can't do. He may not get videogames but he knows how important they are to me (and my other nerdy escapades), and he's always been supportive of it. Never forget when I started collecting Marvel Super Heroes Reborn (a UK collector's series of Fantastic Four, Iron Man & later Hulk), my first issue was the coming of Galactus and a couple of weeks later this massive box arrives & he managed to get all the back dated issues!

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

My dad worked himself to the bone to provide for us. He played some games with me as a child. When we first got an Atari VCS 2600 we would play the multiplayer games like COMBAT! and Pac-Man (even though the console port was awful).

In the arcades he would often plunk in a quarter to play Galaga with me. Or Galaxian. He also built my first computer for me and upgraded mine over his so I could do some rudimentary gaming.

My dad is one of the greatest and most supportive people I know. He taught me everything important that I know. And I'm so lucky to be in my 40s and still have him in my life. I know it's not popular to be a person of Faith around here, but I am one and I thank God for letting me have the absolute best dad I've ever known.

My own daughter is now a teenager. And everything I know about being a dad, I know from my dad's example. Gaming has been a huge part of our relationship. When she was much younger I introduced her to my old NES and SNES libraries. To the N64 and Saturn. She was old enough to play a few of my Dreamcast games when they were new. And of course we've played so many of the Mario games or Zelda games over the years. We played the Kingdom Hearts games on the PS2, we swung through the streets of New York as Spider-Man in the movie tie in games.

She's at the age where she'd rather do things with her friends, but even today we still play a bit of Animal Crossing from time to time. We visit one another's towns and help each other with collections.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

Not much. He is pretty stupid and controlling a computer/console game was well beyond his mental capabilities. But that was a long time ago my parents divorced and he moved away and not only he was not involved in my gaming hobby but he disappeared from my life altogether and i never missed him.

 

[bliebblob]

Completely opposed. He is/was 100% of the stereotypical "Games rot your brain and destroy your computer with viruses" opinion. He also staunchly believed all of those pc myths like how you can't turn a pc back one within one minute after turning it off. Originally I believed him too, but through the years I got more pc savvy and eventually was able to debunk his opinions.
So then we entered this awkward stage where he clearly didn't approve but couldn't speak up unless my guard was down. In other words: every time my grades took a dip or whatever, suddenly the games debate was back from the dead. Heck, it was during this period that I had to lobby for 2 years for the right to buy and pay for world of warcraft. I never did get his blessing, only a reluctant cease fire.
Now we're in the third phase where he seems to have accepted that this gaming thing is never going to disappear, and he even plays some casual ipad games. But on the other hand he also goes to great lengths to make sure everyone knows he plays them ironically and you can tell he still blames games for me not becoming an astronaut.

The funny thing is he's extremely competitive and strategic so there's probably some games out there he would love. But he never will because he's put himself in a position where he can never admit to not hating games.

 

[darkcalling]

Dad constantly playing on the neighbor's NES was the reason we finally got one. He was obsessed with Castlevania 2: Simon's quest, and DragonWarrior in particular.

The last games I remember seeing him play was Gauntlet ark Legacy and Sniper Scope in a truck stop arcade. He doesn't game much anymore but he did enjoy watching my brother play Uncharted 2 and 3.

 

[unbreakable212]

Quite involved, my dad is quite tech-savvy and he was playing games before/after I was born so...

The first game we played together was Quake, great game, had many laughs playing it, even got my mum to join in once or twice... she was always terrified of the Zombies & Shamblers! Another game I recall playing was Warcraft and Age of Empires, even though he usually kicked my ass at those.(as I was young, about 12/13, hadn't grasped "strategy" games yet)

He'd occasionally come home with a new game for me/us to try out and so on, although now the only game he really plays would be the Football Manager series, we still talk about games and new releases occasionally.

 

[Glaice]

Nearly nonexistent, sadly.

 

[Severian]

My dad used to have gatherings with about 20 of his buddies and they would hold leagues and tournaments with a crappy Intellivision(anyone remember this?) Football game. Got my brothers and I an NES in Christmas 86 or 87 and it's been a lifestyle ever since!

 

[Kinitawowi]

If it wasn't for my Dad I probably wouldn't have a gaming hobby. He got us our first ZX Spectrum 29 years ago when I was 4, and took me down to the arcades when I was about 6 (if it wasn't for those arcades I wouldn't love Bayonetta so much); he introduced me to the PC and PC gaming (which mostly consisted of Wolfenstein, Doom and Dune 2) when I was 13, and emulation of that Spectrum at 15. I helped him build his new PC when I was 17, he e-mailed me games and Speccy remakes to play on the PCs at university, he built me my own at 20. He kept introducing new games to me whenever I visited him throughout my 20s; he still loves the original WW2 based Call Of Duty games, and most of the Need For Speeds. I rung him tonight to talk about Father's Day and my new build and Bioshock Infinite. (He loves the game, but remains annoyed that Elizabeth can pick up ammo and health for you but can't collect her own lockpicks.)

It was his hobby first, and then it was our hobby. And it still is. (Although that formative Spectrum time is almost certainly why neither of us have ever been that impressed with consoles; he wrote a few Spectrum games and got one of our neighbours to do music for them. He even sent one to a publisher, although they turned it down.) My mother always hated it, and if I hadn't got into gaming before their divorce when I was 8 then I'm pretty sure she would have ensured that I never did.