What Made you a Gamer?

[Erttheking]

My dad played super nintendo, you do the math.

 

[Shockolate]

My father was a gamer before I was born. He got me into gaming.

May he rest in peace.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I'll probably be hounded out of here when I say that I didn't really get into gaming until I was about seventeen.

One of my childhood friends got me into RTS's in my early teens and I played them casually, got the TW titles (which promptly commenced an addiction which is yet to be cured... nor do I want it to be) but it was when I was seventeen and about to go to uni that I inherited my own PC (albeit a crappy piece of shit), bought a couple games on discount and discovered that I loved shooting people/things.

It's a combination of things... something to do that was fun, something to get away from any crap that was happening and do with my other halves... did more gaming with girlfriends than mates, oddly...

 

[Fumofu]

I was told it was like TV, but you could control it. How would that NOT make anyone a gamer back in the nineties? This was amplified by the fact that I was into Pokemon at the time and when I discovered the video games I was instantly hooked.

 

[War Penguin]

It started off when I was six, with the downstairs neighbor kid offering me to play N64 with him for a bit. It got me so pumped up and made want a videogame console myself. My parents didn't let me, though. They didn't want me playing games excessively. They didn't mind if it was at a friend's house, but the kid downstairs moved away shortly after. So for four years, I was on a gaming dry spell. But the more I didn't play, the more I wanted to. Finally, my parents gave in and got me a Gameboy Advanced. Two years later, a Game Cube.

So I guess you could say the lack of gaming got me into gaming.

 

[him over there]

My dad owned an N64 just a year before I was born. He would actually do most of the playing when it came to beating games. I just played random levels and appreciated the sounds and colours. Another thing is that even as a kid I was kind of dumpy and never really liked games like tag or sports. I loved simply being outside however and put my tv up against the window with it open. Plus with nothing good on tv I always turned to games instead.

Strangely enough I always hated arcades and portable systems, I always played things on a big tv on channel 91 that I lost the remote for. I hated pressing the up channel buttons a million times.

 

[Whalebranch]

For me, it started off with the "games are fun and all my friends are playing them, so I should too." But later down the road, they kind of became that sanctuary for me from my life. Back in 8th grade I hated my school and games were what made me smile back in the day. I fell behind in my studies because I needed to cool down at home.

After that, it became an addiction and then I simmered down to how I am now, someone who supports forms of art..

Dude... wow, it's like we're living the same life but in different places!

There's only the fact that I'm in 10th grade right now... you sound like you're an adult with a job and such

 

[BreakfastMan]

Well, I always liked stories and story-telling in all of its forms. I just didn't think that games could tell a good story for the longest time. I thought they were for fun, not to make you think or weep. Then I played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. My 13 year old self was blown away, not only by how awesome the game is, but how great the story is. It had great characters, jaw-dropping plot twists and all the other good stuff I found I books and movies, but not in games (to that point). I was fascinated by this, and started playing more games. I eventually got to KOTOR, and was hooked. Games became my favorite story-telling medium.

 

[Zen Toombs]

What made me a gamer was Pokemon. I loved that game to pieces.

Knights of the Old Republic also helped. :3

 

[Epidemiix]

I think I was about three, that's when my dad got me a Gameboy color and Pokemon red version. To this day I still believe the reason that I learned to read fast, without problem, and clearer than most kids at that time was because of that game.

 

[Bomberman4000]

My brother got an NES when he turned 5 and I was 1 (in 1989). I guess I just sorta grew up around it. I went through the phase that every little brother goes through of wanting to be like his big brother.

Ironically, I also really got into owning my own consoles and games when going through puberty, I started being compared to my brother and felt I couldn't live up. In games though, I was king. I was in control. As I grew a little older (just turned 24, so probably around 18 or so) I started becoming interested in what makes a good game, and what mechanics certain developers lean towards, genre specific characteristics, and so on and so forth. Also my one friend was a gamer, and he and I would hang out after school and game from elementary school all the way until I went off to college. Even now we still game on Xbox Live together.

So I guess initially it was wanting to be like my brother, then it became wanting to get out of his shadow.

EDIT: I feel old reading the talk about Pokemon. I was in middle school when Pokemon came out in America haha. I was already well engrossed into gaming by then. Also, I love topics like this. Everyone has a different gaming story and origin. Good stuff.

 

[SpikeyGirl]

Complete lack of social life.
According to my mum I started playing with a computer at 18 months( climbing onto her lap and pushing keys) eventually she made a program that made the screen change colour with every key press and a specific combo to exit.
Then, as there weren't many kids nearby, it would be me and my siblings playing multiplayer games, Age of Empires I & II and Diablo II are the ones I remember the most. Possibly because I still play Diablo II on occasion.

 

[Pinstar]

Availability. I was a child when I got my first gaming system (An NES). I was also an only child. I realized that all forms of fun required some form of warm-up time. Playing with friends required getting someone to drive me...and to make sure my friends were available, which they weren't always. Same for playing at he park.

A video game let me play without waiting for conditions to be right. I could just play. Granted, they didn't stop me from playing with my friends or going to the park when I was able, but for the times I wasn't, they kept me happy and occupied.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Well, I watched my brother play Super Mario Brothers on the NES and I was fascinated by it, I was I think 4 or 5. He even let me play with him by swopping the controller back and forth after each level.

That, and where I grew, before I moved away due to me getting super sick in the winter, we had a basement that was used for when there was a tornado warning. So, to keep me from being bored out of my mind, I would play games with my brother, or by myself. We also had a computer, an Apple e2, that had some games on it, and I would play those since I was the only kid that played computer games.

 

[gNetkamiko]

Well, I first picked up a console at the tender age of 3 after watching my father play a golf game on the Accolade game system (look it up if you haven't heard of it.)

Much of my story after that is extremely similar to yours. Though, this last year I've decreased the amount of time I play games to roughly half an hour to 2 hours a day, mainly because I've been busy training puppies as well as keeping my family's house clean and keeping in touch with friends that are overseas.

 

[Roggen Bread]

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and The Settlers 3.
But mostly Heroes. Before, I was more like casual.

 

[Tahaneira]

Lego.

I'm dead serious. My first games ever were all Lego video games, LEGO Island and Alpha Team. They were swiftly followed by Metroid Prime, and then Age of Mythology. At that point, I decided games were fun and kept playing them.

 

[Da Orky Man]

PC gaming and Age of Empires II.

My dad would play PC games with his mouse hand, and hold infant me on his other arm. Let me tell ya, that's a great way to get started.

Handheld gaming and Pokémon Crystal one fateful birthday sealed the deal.

Practivally the same here. My dad used to have me on his lap when he played the first Age of Empires. After a while, I tried playing it, and loved it straight away. After my grandma got me Pokemon Blue, I played that all the time. And I do mean ALL the time, including sneaking it into school. Though the first time I actually got a game myself was Age of Empires 2. Played it hours a day for months.
And, thanks to some inventive file tranferring, i've still got the same save files even now. I'm still playing a save game from 2000.