Board 8 > Who provided you with your first gaming experience?

(+) Yeah! (+)

if you received something as a hand-me-down from your sibling/parents/cousin/friend then you can just count that as "belonging" to them even though it became yours

my dad used to take me to an arcade in the mall that's been gone for two decades, I can't remember my first game but it was definitely there.

(i'm in the mood for polls today)
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Probably Mario Bros./Duck Hunt on the NES bought for me by my parents.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Probably Mario Bros./Duck Hunt on the NES bought for me by my parents.

i wonder how many people have the same exact first experience. i know that was my cousins' first game too.
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I imagine most people around my age, if they've been gaming their whole life, will say that
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Don't know
But either a game on the NES bought by my parents...or something in an arcade, with my parents.
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lol @ the concept of something "belonging" to a sibling. Did each kid in your house have their own console or something? We shared everything
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At Sears they had an NES set up so I blame them.
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When I was 3, my dad had me try out NASCAR 99 for the PS1 for a couple of minutes, and all I did was drive into the wall.

My parents introduced me to so many games, probably would not have played many RPGs without my dad or be super into survival horror without my mom.
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I'm an only child

My cousins used to fight over what games were "theirs" and for handheld games they would both get their own copies even if it was the same exact game that supported multiple save files

Same with my best friend growing up, he and his brother both had their own rooms with their own game systems in them and they each got copies of whatever games they want. There was no sharing. (he was no longer my friend by like junior year of HS he was kind of a dick)

I figure that's not too uncommon, there are spoiled kids out there
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ZenOfThunder posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

Probably Mario Bros./Duck Hunt on the NES bought for me by my parents.

i wonder how many people have the same exact first experience.

I do
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My older siblings didn't have video games, so my first experience was going to the arcades. Of course, I think I was just pretending to play them, mostly.

The first console gaming experience was recommended by one of my doctors; because of my autism, he recommended playing video games to help with my hand-eye coordination. And thus I got an NES on my 6th birthday.
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My oldest gaming memory is playing Zelda 2 on my parents' NES when I was... 6, probably.
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Boxing or Pole Position for Atari that belonged to my parents
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LeonhartFour posted...

Probably Mario Bros./Duck Hunt on the NES bought for me by my parents.

Mario Bros. /Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet in one cartridge, came with the power pad to run on too.

I remember sitting on the couch while my dad set it up and he made me watch him play for a while before me and my brothers could play.
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I can't really tell, family's had an NES since before I was born, gradually moving on to next systems
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Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt on the NES my grandparents bought for themselves. I never thought about how neat that was until many years later.

foolm0r0n posted...

lol @ the concept of something "belonging" to a sibling.

Yeah this is extremely common

can't remember if it was playing Pokemon Red on my own GameBoy Color which i got because it was Pokemon or playing Smash Bros at someone's house

i've never even seen an NES in person. i think i've seen a SNES once but anything before N64 besides Pokemon was distinctly not part of my childhood.

wait...n64 was before pokemon red O_O

kateee how old are you

or are you just in an area devoid of retro games
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Hard to be entirely sure, but I assume I played my brother's NES before I had my own Gameboy. I suppose it's possible I played something on an old computer in school first though, but probably not. One of those single-game handheld devices is possible too I guess.
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my first game was Chip's Challenge so I guess that counts as belonging to my parents
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I was so young that I don't remember. Probably a game that belonged to my brothers on SNES
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kateee posted...

can't remember if it was playing Pokemon Red on my own GameBoy Color which i got because it was Pokemon or playing Smash Bros at someone's house

i've never even seen an NES in person. i think i've seen a SNES once but anything before N64 besides Pokemon was distinctly not part of my childhood.

wait...n64 was before pokemon red O_O

Yeah when you go back and think about it, it's kinda crazy how far behind consoles the handhelds used to be. Like the Gameboy Color and the Playstation 2 co-existed.
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NES SMB/Duck Hunt
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foolm0r0n posted...

lol @ the concept of something "belonging" to a sibling. Did each kid in your house have their own console or something? We shared everything

lol what

We had our own controllers/games, the only thing we shared was the console. And you can bet if we were ever fighting the first thing we'd do is take away our games/controllers so the other person couldn't use them.
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i got my n64 around 2000 so in my mind, i guess video games before then did not exist. if you had just asked me randomly about the n64's release year i might have said 2000 since that's just so ingrained as when the concept of video games became actualized to me.

i mean i know the release years of some of the bigger titles so if i thought about it i would have realized something was off since that would mean the n64 had a one year lifespan because i know Gamecube came out in 2001.

pretty easy to keep track of console ownership

like yeah they're shared but they tend to be gotten on christmas or birthdays unless someone simply buys the system themselves

yeah you might "share" it, but when someone grows up and moves out they get to take it since it's theirs

Menji posted...

We had our own controllers/games, the only thing we shared was the console. And you can bet if we were ever fighting the first thing we'd do is take away our games/controllers so the other person couldn't use them.

hell yeah the green n64 controller was mine
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also whenever I shared another family member's console I would always save my file on the 3rd slot (being the 3rd sibling)
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Menji posted...

We had our own controllers

Whatttt lmao
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I'm 100% with foolmo here. Y'all be some weird selfish dudes.

My first gaming experience was playing the Commodore 64 me and my brother shared.

Even if you live in a house where everything is completely communally owned, it would still stand to reason that if you had an older sibling who played video games before you were born/old enough to play your first video game experience would be on "their" game console

pretty sure it was a hot wheels game that my dad had
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The first game I ever played was one of Classic NES Ice Climber, Fire Emblem, or WarioWare Inc. on a GBA my parents bought for me, circa Christmas 2004 when I was seven.

Interestingly, even though video gaming didn't click for me at the time, the last of those is one of my favorite games today.
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I think - and I might be wrong - the first videogame I played was on the Commodore 64, and my dad actually made the game himself.
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Arcade. But I almost voted "public place" before I saw the option.
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Paratroopa1 posted...

Even if you live in a house where everything is completely communally owned, it would still stand to reason that if you had an older sibling who played video games before you were born/old enough to play your first video game experience would be on "their" game console

Nah we got the system when the youngest was 3 so we all played at the same time. Including our parents (so it was definitely "theirs").
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LeonhartFour posted...

Probably Mario Bros./Duck Hunt on the NES bought for me by my parents.

This one.
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I'm pretty sure the first time I played a video game was NES at a neighbor's house when I was around 3 but I don't specifically remember.

also I agree with foolmo. my brother and I always got along really well and had no concept of games/consoles being one person's or the others.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Probably Mario Bros./Duck Hunt on the NES bought for me by my parents.

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Zelda on neighbors NES
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My sister is seven years older than me and had the NES in her bedroom, so when I was old enough to understand what a video game was, I also thought they 'belonged' to her. But I played it more than she did and she eventually gave it to me.
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Beat Double Dragon 2 at age 2 with my dad.

How he dragged my two year old useless self through that game I will never know
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My grandparents had an Odyssey^2 but I don't really think it was theirs, it was just at their house. My parents bought an Intellivision soon after.

I got grounded for a long time and saved my allowance and birthday money and ended up buying my own Nintendo. It was mostly a communal system because we had one TV in the living room, but no one else was getting games for it.

As we grew older, we always had our own video game systems. My brother got the SNES and Gameboy, I had the Genesis and the old NES, we shared as much as we wanted to but it was never really a question as to who was in charge of a particular system. We eventually had a TV in our own rooms and so those systems were just with their owners.

Other families just had like one console and it was always on the main/lone TV. We were fortunate but then again those kids never saved their birthday money the way we did.
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My older brother is 13 years older than me owned an Atari and NES before I was born, so yeah, those belonged to my sibling and I played them after.
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I came in ready to say "Santa"
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5tarscream posted...

Y'all be some weird selfish dudes.

aside from the fact that it's clearly a parenting thing and not something that falls on the child, again, this is an extremely common thing

not that common = good, but still. tbh the notion that a child can't "own" something is weird to me!

that said, I had one sibling and we only had one of each console. But that has more to do with the fact that by the time I was old enough to even have the thought of wanting my own things, my sister had already lost all interest in video games anyway.

but my cousins and friends who had multiple siblings often had their own controllers, game boys, etc. There are good lessons to be taught about sharing and there are also good lessons to be taught about respecting other people's property. Though I'm guessing one common reason for siblings have their own of everything is likely that the parents just don't want to deal with the kids fighting over usage of the thing.

Great question. My earliest gaming memory is playing Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt at my uncle's old house, back when I was 3 or 4. My sister and I loved those games. My uncle also owned Excitebike and R.C. Pro-Am, but it was all about SMB/DH for us whenever we'd visit.

Eventually, my uncle gave us the NES and games as a gift. I think he did this after buying a PS1 and subsequently losing interest in the old toaster. I don't have R.C. Pro-Am any longer (don't remember what happened to it), but I still own everything else and they work great to this day. That was a hell of a gesture on his part!
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5tarscream posted...

I'm 100% with foolmo here. Y'all be some weird selfish dudes.

what would be selfish about constantly sharing your games with everyone
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I remember going to the store with my friend and his family after tax returns came in and they bought 3 PS2s and several copies of the the same game for all three kids and I was just baffled by it.

We did have our own controllers though since we needed one each anyway for multiplayer games
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GuessMyUserName posted...

what would be selfish about constantly sharing your games with everyone

Cuz they are not yours

To be clear, kids owning things isn't weird, it's parents buying multiple copies of clearly shareable things for their kids that's weird. Which leads to this selfishness/possessiveness in the kids. Or like GMUN, a false sense of altruism.
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