Did your parents play video games with you as a kid?

[IntelliMission]

I was watching this video (it's a guy who has played the Amico behind closed doors) and realized I was not alone: too often, people aren't lucky enough to have parents that played video games with them as kids.

 

My parents barely played with me, they just left me playing alone for hours. Are you like me or were you more lucky?

[Pixelboy]

To this day, my mother doesn't know how to operate a microwave, so forget anything computerized including video games. My dad never really touched anything computerized either during his lifetime. Video games and computers in general were always my personal domain, within my family unit.

 

[VectorGamer]

My dad was a pinball guy he never played video games.

[zzip]

Occasionally.  They were not big on videogames then (ironically they play them a lot on Facebook now)

 

I remember my Mom liking Frogger somewhat.   My dad hated videogames at the time, but he kind of liked Qix on the Atari 800XL, and Ms Pacman on the 2600.

[+cjherr]

My dad only played once with me, but it’s one of my favorite memories. I was in my 20’s and he was In his 60’s. He loved to golf, but his health had been deteriorating, and he couldn’t do it every day like he wanted to, so I decided to show him Intellivision PGA Golf. For folks who haven’t seen it, the first hole almost looks like a check mark, going down screen from the tee and then turning upward with a longer fairway to the hole. I showed dad how to aim and took my shot to the bend at the bottom of the screen. When it came time for his shot, he aimed straight at the trees between the two “legs” of the hole. Thinking he was confused about the aiming, I tried to correct him only to shut my mouth in surprise when he neatly popped the shot over the trees and onto the fairway on the other side leaving him in better position than I was. To my dying day, I will never forget the grin he gave me. We never got to play again, but I’m glad we did that time.  

[+stupus]

My dad never once played a videogame. Or has ever owned a computer or cell phone. We did get him to play our flintstones go fish card game a few times lol

[HoshiChiri]

Yep! Not so much by the time we had the Genesis, but fairly often on the NES. Mom was the Tetris champion of the house.

 

What I remember most was getting the NES Christmas Day & everyone playing Mario. Mom was the first one to get to Bowser's castle & half-panicking through all the fireballs. She managed to finish the stage, and we were celebrating- Mom beat the game! Then Toad informed us the princess was in another castle. We found out the next day there were EIGHT stages! Our lil' minds were blown at the scope of that game. Ah, youth...

[+save2600]

Arcade games mostly... console games very rarely: Dad, yes. Mom, no - though she'd play pinball with us.  

[4300]

My dad was briefly interested in Mario and duck hunt when I got my NES. He'd occasionally play some light gun arcade games when we went to pizza hut or an arcade. That was about it. 

[BydoEmpire]

My dad would play Intellivision with us for a while when we first got the console, but nothing really since. Not really a bad thing, it didn't matter to me at all and I don't feel like i missed out on anything.  We went fishing, skiing, camping and other things together.

[CatPix]

My father played some Pong with us, and that was the end of it. Granted we never had much 2 players games on the NES that could interest my father and by the SNES era well neither him or us were interested in playing together.

My grand mother played Duck Hunt for she liked watching the dog laughing but that wasn't really 2 players.

[BiffMan]

Would be interesting to know how this varies with age.  As someone who grew up on Intellivision, it was very much a family activity for a while, but less so as NES and other systems came along.  I don't think my parents aged out of enjoying games, as we continued to play boardgames, there were just fewer fun/easy multiplayer games.  I have that issue to some extent with my kids.  We do have fun with some co-op videogames on console or PC, but it's not really a central part of our lives at the moment.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

My mother did play video games. But not with me. She would wait until I went to bed to catch and hour or two on the VCS. Occasionally she would play in the early evening hours but as we only had one TV when I was growing up, it wasn't that common.

 

Now... in the mid to late 80s once we got a newer TV and the old one was now a secondary, then gaming was done more often on the Atari. But even then my mother usually played by herself and only a few times did she and I play homerun or Mattel's Baseball on the VCS. Homerun didn't last long once I figured out how to hit homers each time but baseball was good every now and then.

 

My Stepdad didn't really play games much. He was more into airplanes (Still is...) and owned a few of his own when I was kid. None of them were in flying condition but he did have them all the same. He did play arcade games once in a while when we were at the pizza parlor or movies. But only if there was a Galaga in there somewhere.

 

[Tales from the Game Room]

Back in the days of Atari and Intellivision, video games were my babysitter, so that my Mom could watch television in the other room in peace.  After that, the games started to become too complicated, and my Mom wouldn't have stood a chance on the grid...lol

[Flojomojo]

Nope. My books, comics, games and computers were solely the domain of me and my friends. They'd watch TV and go to movies with me, and played the occasional board game, but never had the slightest interest in video games, "family fun" or not. My friends' parents, who were way more indulgent with buying electronic amusements for their kids, were the same way.
 

If it's nice outside, go out and play. If it's rainy or cold, to the basement with you and jack into cyberspace. 
 

Something with a goal or point to it, like an adventure game or something with educational value, would be sneered at less than a twitch game like Joust, which they saw as electronic ping pong. Harmless in small amounts, but not for them. 
 

My own kid and her friends enjoy the occasional Just Dance or Mario Kart but aren't very into video games at all. They're way more into real life activities like sports, crafts, and socializing. 

[digdugnate]

my dad was super into pinball and computer games in the 70s and early 80s, but I only remember a handful of times he would actively play with me.  my mom is *not* an electronics person of any sort really- which made it all the more funny when she finally got a Kindle Fire a year or so ago.

 

sort of like @Flojomojo, my toys/comics/games/etc were pretty much my domain.  lots of time spent as a kid with piles of books/comics, Construx, Lego, Transformers, and the like. 

[Steven Pendleton]

It's quite literally my dad's fault that I play video games. He bought the Genesis and even ran a LAN cable through the vent and through the basement into my Mac just so we could play Unreal Tournament, StarCraft (yes, spawn!), Command & Conquer, and more. Then we stopped playing together for some reason. Did play Delta Force Black Hawk online with him a few times in maybe 2004/2005 and also Joint Ops Typhoon Rising a few times. I never really cared for BHD (or any other non-historical shooter) very much though.

[Mulletino]

My parents bought us a "family present" of a used Atari VCS when I was a kid. It lived in the lounge (the only room with a TV) and us kids played it most. They'd have some games with us but not many. We had a family friend who was divorced from another family friend who came round sometimes, he was into gaming as he also had an Atari and would bring games we didn't have to play while he was there, mainly Pac-man and Frogger.

Us kids would sit playing them  in the lounge while the adults chatted and smoked, they would have a go every now and then.

 

I used to think it was amazing that an adult was into gaming back then, but he was likely younger than i am now so it wasn't anything unusual really.

[Omega-TI]

I was not exactly a kid at the time, but my Dad and I used to get together to have Parsec 'grudge matches'.  He was actually pretty damn good at that game.  We both had TI-99/4A's at the time.  A little over a year ago a made a YouTube as a memorial to my Dad who also liked the game B1-Bomber.

 

 

[Tanooki]

The only one that would touch something was my mom and it was pretty well few and far between except at a couple points in time.  She really liked Pac-Man and kind of got into Super Mario Bros.  She picked up the licensed Pac-Man for NES and would play it now and again, we just would have to set it up for her is all, and eventually then MS put that Return of Arcade on Windows so we put that on her computer and she did PacMan there instead.  SMB I think fascinated her a bit but was mostly overwhelming as she did a few stages much like a little kid would, lots of trial, lots more error, and eventually just stopped not going that far but was ok trying.

[Shawn]

My Mom played some video games with me from time to time. Not on a regular basis or anything but she had some games she liked.

[derFunkenstein]

My dad and I bonded quite a bit over Super C and Bases Loaded on the NES. 

[+stupus]

On the flip flop i played alot with my kids to make up for never playing with my parents

intellivision, nes, colecovision, atari, arcades, c64.....great times

[CaptainBreakout]

My dad played a lot of Apple II with me and my sister for the first year or so that we owned it. Wings of Fury and Boulderdash were our favorites.

 

Also we played King of Chicago (IIgs) all the way through together. He drove the game and we made decisions together. That was awesome.

 

We also played through most of Leasure Suit Larry... Until I made some reference to the content to my Mom... Who then put the kabosh on that.

[jcalder8]

My dad played Intellivision around the time I was born but by the time I was old enough to play it he very rarely played. My mom used to play a very little bit but she would get a better score on Skiing if she didn't touch the controller and just left it. Mostly I played with my older brother. I am not sure if he played with my parents more before I came around.