Ive been turning this over in my head for the last few weeks, and i was really unsure if i should even post it here but eh why not.

 

I (like so many) grew up playing video games, and i have grown to love them even more as i have grown.

But over the years i have noticed something. I dont have many friends IRL who play video games, and of those few only one has ever played KH. And over the years of knowing gamers and talking with these games, inevitably growing up with games comes up. And always in these conversations do i realise that how i grew up with games is very different from how- with out exception among people ive met- other people i know did.

 

Short background, i am a girl. I grew up with the GBA and DS when they first came out, and i went to a rather small private elementary school with an overwhelmingly large male student body compared to the number of females.

 

I grew up playing video games all by myself. I didnt meet anyone until well into high school that i could play video games with, or even talk about with (out side of here).

 

I recall going to my elementary school and bringing my DS or GBA and asking to play with others who were always boys- i never saw a girl my age playing video games at this school. And constantly being regected and told i couldnt play because i was a girl. So i played alone.

 

When i became a middle schooler, video games became for 'babies' so no one else played- at least openly like i did. So again i played alone and was critisized for not only liking video games, and being a girl, but for being an 'immature baby.'

 

When ever i tell people this they always look at me like, 'Wow that sounds so sad.' And go on to tell me how they grew up playing with friends all the time, through all their years in school.

 

It got me thinking, was my exp really that different from so many other peoples? I mean yeah, i wished i had had a bunch of gamer friends growing up but it just didnt happen. I always figuered that tons of people must have grown up like me playing alone and ridiculed for what they liked. But from who ive talked to (this is like about 20 people in all, all of whom went to differnt schools) this seems to not have been the case. 20 is a miniscule sample size though, so i thought id post it here and see.

 

 So, did you grow up solo gaming, or with a bunch of friends connected through your love of video games?

 

 

Also, if you want, share your exp growing up with games.

I got introduced to gaming through my two older brothers. I, being the youngest, started out watching them play, then as I got older I tried them myself. I started with Pokemon Red and Final Fantasy X, so it must have been around 2001/2002.

I remember in elementary school I had friends that I talked with about gaming, but I didn't really played multiplayer. Same in high school come to think of it. I've always been a single-player-game player, and so were all my friends. To this day, most of my friends like games, and I talk to them about it and play with them occasionally.

When you make friends, you seek out people with the same interests, so I guess gamers befriend gamers.

I guess I've been fortunate

Ummm when I was 4 years old, video games have fascinated me. I started my gaming career with a gameboy and got N64 and PSOne for my fifth birthday. Don't know if I discovered playing video games for myself, my memories are really weak. But what I know is I mostly played multiplayer games with my brothers and sisters. Good, old times. ^^

 

I have a lot of friends, who are playing video games but only one among them plays KH. Last time we played KH 2.5 HD Remix together and talked a lot about KH and theories and so on.

 

And to say that playing video games is immature.. this point of view is actually immature.

Edited February 26, 201510 yr by Komali

I grew up solo gaming especially since i've always had few friends. Though I did always have both of my brothers, but they're both in to different games from what I play usually, so we didn't play together all that often. As I got in to around 8th grade though I finally got some people to play games with and what not though which is good.

Edited February 26, 201510 yr by Rainbow Dash

I grew up playing video games with my brothers. I remember the time when we had a lot of fun playing smash brothers brawl. We had fun with the game even without using online mode. Today, we don't play smash brothers for wii u as much as we did with past entries in the smash series. I don't know why actually. 

When I was about 6, me and my brother were given my Dad's original Playstation. It had a bucket load of games and two controllers to go mad with. Over the years my love of games never changed. My brother usually got the Nintendo home console and I usually got the Playstation equivalent. We never played much together on the PS2, but the Gamecube was great for multiplayer. This trend continued with the PS3 and Wii.

 

We were never allowed a Gameboy or anything (due to money reasons) but after I got the GBA SP my brother got one not long after. I still fondly remember us getting a DS the same day. We scurried to the savings account and then rushed to buy a DS (he got the original blue, while I jumped for the DSLite).

 

After the Wii was bought my brother eventually lost interest in asking for new systems and keeping up with the trends of video games. I was the only one buying new games for the Wii late in its cycle (I even sent the thing to Nintendo when it broke). So in that regard when I was about 15 or 16, I mostly played games solo. Nowadays I'm the one that notifies him of new stuff that gets announced. I managed to get him to buy a 2DS so that he could play some of the good games on the 3DS. I also encouraged him to set up a Steam and he's really into that.

 

I guess growing up with games my memories were always playing multiplayer with my younger brother. My mum didn't really play games outside of what was on the Playstation and while my dad tries he could never keep up with us. I played games with friends but friends come and go so it became a different experience the more the years went by.

I grew up playing alone cuz my sister does not want to play with me.

I don't really play games alone if you're talking about if I know people who are into games cause all my friends are,not that I have that many but if you're talking about a multiplayer aspect that all depends on the type of games you play,but I should say that me and my friends have similar interests when it comes to the type of games we play so I guess I wouldn't be counted as alone.

When I was younger, I think I'd play some games with my brother, but aside from that, I didn't do a whole lot of multiplayer. My brother and I both loved playing games, but we'd spend more time talking to each other about them than actually playing together. When I got a little older, I was homeschooled for a while, and played an online game to get interactions with other people, so I guess I played games with them in a way (I also still talk to one of them). When I got Super Smash Bros Brawl, I'm pretty sure I'd play it with my brother more often, and played online with some of my online friends. In high school, I started playing multiplayer more often, and lately, I've spent a ton of time playing games multiplayer. I've kinda grown more used to it over time.

Edited February 27, 201510 yr by Shulk