I'm 21 now and started playing video games seriously as of christmas '97 when i got a Nintendo 64... So i was 8 or 9 when i started.
I was also quite good, i can remember my dad's 30 year old friends, who all owned their own N64 consoles, could never beat me at Golden Eye. I remember one of them, a police officer, got quite angry once because i kept killing him.