When did you start gaming?

btw board games rock compare to computer games; if a kid is going to play games they should play with others on a board

First video game I played would have been around '72 or '73. It was before I started school so I would have been 4! I remember pong, and the console had a light gun for some some kind of simple target game.

Must've been the early 90s … I don't remember anymore when, though.
Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis was really new then, but one of the very first games I bought was a Blues Brother jump & run game.

Many publishers of that time don't exist anymore.

If we're talking board games, I started on chess probably around 1970, and progressed to Risk and Monopoly a bit later, around 73. After that I got sucked into playing Diplomacy, Axis and Allies, and a host of other board games that eventually lead to Dungeons and Dragons, Chivalry and Sorcery, and a lot more. My memories of board games are much more intense and vivid than any video games I ever played, there is simply no comparison.

My father bought us a Philips G7000 (called Magnavox in the US), this must have been in '79. But what i wanted was a computer, which at the time wasn't really possible. When the Commodore 64 was released in Sweden i got one for Christmas, which is one of the happiest moments of my life, even to this date i think.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Pinball machines first, then space invaders in maybe 78 or 79? I didn't own a home computer until 1983, and that's when I really got hooked!

Sounds about right for me, too. Also got an Atari 2600 in the late 70's somewhere.

Mid to late nineties. We bought a knock off NES as our first console, but the first game I really remember was Doom on my uncle's Pentium 1 powered PC. If I have to be precise, I'd say that was in '97-'98.

Board games? My dad taught me chess when I was seven so 1965 as a starting point. (Yes, I am 60).

That's how I started, the kids in the family (me included) began first on checkers, but when an older sibling saw how I didn't really care for the game, I was inducted into chess. I never looked back after that, I was well hooked.

I got a Pong console in 1976 for Christmas (I was 7). I remember sitting in the floor at my grandparents, on Christmas day, getting everyone to play it with me. Oddly I have zero memories of ever playing it again after that day.

Next was Atari 2600 for Christmas the next year. Which I played probably every day until getting a Commodore 64.

Commodore 64 in 1980-81ish. I mostly remember playing Infocom & Ultima games on this.

Mid-late eighties quickly went through Atari 400, Atari 800, Apple 2c, Apple 2gs, and then my first PC (custom built 286 that was ridiculously expensive, way more than I've ever spent on a PC since then). Mostly PC gaming till now.

Oh, the board games. Probably around the same time as video games ('97-'98). My brother and I played chess almost daily, and a friend of ours had Monopoly and Cluedo/Clue so we would play that along with our other friends.
I remember we weren't able to afford Cluedo (nineties were not a good time in Serbia) so my mother photocopied all the cards and we made the board ourselves so our family could play it together at night. I guess I'm the only board game pirate here

Edit: I still have the photocopies of the cards somewhere, I'll post pictures if I find them.

Originally Posted by Majnun
Comodore 64 in 1980-81ish.

…must have gotten the alpha version then

The mid-eighties, Ultima IV on an older kid's Apple (hence my user title).

Then a long break before Baldur's Gate got me back into it in the late nineties.

My brother got a c64 for Christmas, I think it must have been 1982 when I was 6. The first game I ever played was Jupiter Lander, which I think came with it for free. The first game I got obsessed with was Master of Magic in 1985. A few years later I bought Pool of Radiance with my own money (I'd just started P&Ping D&D, although my group was all about 11 and we made lots of the rules up ). I spent an unholy amount of time playing Pool of Radiance, and not just because of all the disc swapping… I think that's the point I properly started gaming. Happy days.

Started rather late, which is because of two facts: I was born late (as in '82) and my parents also didn't have "enough" money to "casually" gift a computer to a kid.
And arcades weren't a thing in Germany as they were kind of outlawed in 1985. And with outlawed I mean that they had to be in closed buildings were only people of the age of 18+ had access, and they had an image of something like sex-shops.

So I got my first computer, which was a Commodore C64 from my Parents at Christmas 1991. A second hand computer, with tons included "backup copies" ofc.
That pic is from around that time:

Yeah, had to be 1982 for the commodore 64 (unless my memory is better than wikipedia, which i kinda doubt).

I can remember getting tangled up in all of the cables required to setup our family Pong machine in around '82 or '83. My memories are a bit vague on this machine but I can still recall the garish bleeps and blops that it would often emit which would make me jump at times. It was highly fascinating and certainly my first gaming experience.

I wasn't introduced to other computers until Primary school in around 1986 with the C64 and several IBM compatibles. Early educational games that I played included "The Kings Rule" and "Cave of the Word Wizard". For fun, it was "Castle Adventure", "Galaxy" (A Galaga clone) "Kongo Kong" (a Donkey Kong derivative) and the first "King's Quest".

The game I credit for largely influencing my love of games generally would probably be a basic graphical/text adventure called "Mystery Island" which I played with classmates on the C64. Despite the simple parser of that game, I remember being quite obsessed with wanting to capture all 10 treasures in as few commands as possible.

Originally Posted by Hastar
I started gaming with Pong and Space Invaders around 1978 I guess.

Yep, same here. Later I got this used Atari 2600… and bam, addicted. Several 'consoles' followed. Didn't see the appeal of 'real' computer gaming (which for me was synonymous with chess games) until Catacomb 3D, and by the time of Wolfenstein 3D I finally had bought my first 'real' PC.

Sigh. I never had an apple or commodore 64 or even an atari 2600. However, I did have a mother who liked to visit sears and sears had an atari 2600 on 'display' so I did get lots (and I mean a *lot*) of play time!

It is all sort of jumbled in my head, in terms of the exact sequence and history. I think I saw Pong first in 1979 or 1980 though. Then I saw and played Asteroids and Space Invaders in arcade or the local corner convenience store. Then in 1981 or 82 I remember we got a TI 99/4A Texas Instruments game computer, and I loved playing games on that, especially a game called Parsec.

Also in 1982 or 83 the D&D craze and golden period took off, and I, like most other teen boys in middle school, started playing D&D during lunch and with my friends at home. Later a guy in his late 20s or early 30s, who lived next door, he was really into D&D, and all the neighborhood kids would go to his house for regular D&D sessions.

Lastly, me and my adopted brother would create games based on sports like baseball with dice and also played board games like Risk and so on.

Then years later I was kinda late to computer gaming, (surprisingly considering my gaming background) and I got back into it via the release of Baldur's Gate (and Everquest). I missed the whole Ultima period and basically the entire 90s era of computer gaming.