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


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

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

    • Yes, they often played with me.
      10
    • No, they never played with me or only did it a couple of times.
      40

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I answered "No" but am somewhere in the middle

 

My dad is 80 now and has always been interested in new technology, but he doesn't go very deep.  As a result, he has purchased various technology for our family that I subsequently take over later in life.  Even with his relatively high interest level, he really has never played video games much at all with me (or alone).  Sometimes he would ask me about a game he bought for me but generally lacks the patience.

 

My mom has had spurts.  I remember her playing Asteroids so much on the VCS that her thumb hurt.  She also REALLY liked Tetris.  They both had fun playing with the Wii at its height.  Neither one of them would consider actually seeking out a new game or take the time to understand the details of purchasing a new game console.  They don't care enough.

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Kinda funny, I was only 5 at the time and don't recall this, but in cleaning out an old family locker very recently, I found some of grandma's diaries. I don't recall the Smurf game either but we only had 2600 at the time, no Coleco.

 

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I also distinctly recall coming home one day to find my Dad and sister playing SMB3. They were laughing and having a great time, odd to me as they almost never played videogames. Well douchey 9 year old me walked in and told them how they didn't know how to play right and you need to do this here and that there, do this to fly, blah blah blah....and I promptly (though I didn't realize it then) killed all their fun. I know now not to be that guy, but then, I didn't!!!

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Briefly when I was younger and we got our Atari 400.  My mom liked Apple Panic and was pretty decent at it while my dad would occasionally play Pac-Man and Space Invaders with me.  I used to beg him to get the space ship to land in Space Invaders so the UFO would come down and pick you up.  I was better than him at Pac-Man though.  It was never a regular thing, but it was fun when they did.

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When I was growing up, my dad wasn't a huge gamer but he was quite fond of racing games and light gun shooters. We'd take regular trips to the local movie theater or bowling alley or boardwalk arcades when we were on vacation to play through games like Terminator 2: The Arcade Game, The House of the Dead, and Daytona USA. Back in the late 80s he was also the captain of our state paintball team, so he was pretty fond of Gotcha! on the NES as well. These days he's become completely obsessed with browser based games like World of Tanks, etc. Retirement will do that, I guess.

My mom, on the other hand, has never been a gamer save for in 1987 when The Legend of Zelda released. I've got lots of fond memories of my entire family going all-in on that title to uncover all of its secrets. "What the hell is 'grumble, grumble' supposed to mean?!", and "Eastmost Peninsula is the secret" had us stumped for far too long, I must confess. 

Good times. 

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My parents weren't "gamers" but they were instrumental in getting me into video games...

 

My dad usually doesn't like video games but he played Pitfall and showed me how to get past the gators w/o the swinging vine.  He also bought Golf on the 2600 and showed me how to play it, so that was more "his" game.

 

My mom tried to play Atari games with me but never had the patience or skill for them, but she enjoys playing those casual & card games on her Mac.  She was also more into pinball so she'll play those, if there's any still available.  Plus she also encouraged me to learn using home computers and even helped typed in those long BASIC programs in the manual even if she didn't know what they meant.

 

And she also got me hooked on other geek stuff as a kid like comic books and Star Wars. :)

 

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In the early 1980's, my Dad who is an electrical engineer and workaholic, went through an Atari 2600 Super Breakout phase for a year or so.

He regularly scored very well too and it was so cool watching him actually play a video game.

My Mom on the other hand, wouldn't know how to turn the system on if you show her 100 times in one day let alone learn how to operate the joystick ? (but she's a good cook so I always forgive her!).

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My parents bought a Pong clone in the late '70s.  I think my parents played it a few times, but it quickly became the domain of my brother and I.

 

A few years later I got a VIC-20.  My Dad showed no interest, thinking that games were a waste of time.  He liked pinball, so I convinced him to try a very poorly written pinball game.  Dad would nudge the sides of the machine, not realizing that this bevavior would have no influence on the ball.  At one point the game failed with a BASIC error.  My Dad walked away in disgust, saying that the computer was defective.  I don't think he has ever touched a video game since, other than Windows Solitare, if that counts.  

 

My mother bought an Intellivision for our family.  We had hoped that my Dad would play Poker / Blackjack as he liked both of those games in real life.  He had no interest.  My mom would sometimes play Triple Action with my brother and I - but she quickly lost interest and the Intellivision became mine and my brother's property.  That said, my Mom is very comfortable with computers.  She's had internet access in about 1996.  She loves her iPad, iPhone and laptop.

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My parents' involvement in my gaming past was mostly just as the person who paid for the stuff I played.  I mean, they bought all my systems and games up until the Playstation (and some of my TurboGrafx games).

 

As far as playing them, I don't think my mom has ever played any video games.

 

My dad played Duck Hunt once back in the late 90s.

 

Surprisingly, my step-dad got a PS2 at some point.  I was surprised because he had never had any interest in gaming when I was younger, and he got this PS2 after he had had a stroke and couldn't really use one of his hands.  I didn't know about it until after he had passed away.  He and my mom were in the process of moving and while she was at the new house working on setting stuff up or whatever, he fell at the old house and injured himself.  Neighbors found him and took him to the hospital but he passed away a couple days later.  Anyway, we were at the new house and my mom suddenly says, "Do you want a game system that he had?"  "He had a game system?  Why?"  "He saw it at a garage sale and wanted it so he bought it."  Anyway, it was a PS2 with several sports games.  I never played it with him, but it is my main PS2 system now (out of 4 that I own).

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My answer would be somewhere in the middle, but closer to no. My mother played Air Sea Battle on the 2600 a few times and was quite good. And my father played Pong (dedicated machine) and Apple Panic (Atari 800) when we first got them. But other than that, not much. However, today my dad will play x-box 360, Game Cube, and Switch with my kids and it is quite awesome. He's a good sport, especially on the EA Sports games and in Super Smash Bros.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Mom grew up playing NES during her college time, so she later bought a Famiclone several years after marriage and spending some time with her children. Last time we touched it until she sold/put it somewhere (I can't remember exactly) was when I was 5. My siblings and I also played some PC games, but my parents didn't use it for gaming, instead only focusing on work (eg. Microsoft Excel for recording/calculating stuff). Same case when I got an N-Gage and PS2 sometime later (sold the latter before moving to another town, kept the former until it's now rotting somewhere in our attic).

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Mom didn't play, but Dad really got into Missile Command.... he could get pretty far into the game.

 

I also enjoyed the M-Network Super Challenge Baseball quite a bit with Dad :)

 

We also had a TI 99-4a home computer that I gamed on, but I don't recall Dad ever playing a game on it. I loved Donkey Kong, Parsec, Pole Position, and Star Trek Strategic Operations Simulator on the TI... I remember trying to get Dad to play Pole Position, but he just wasn't interested in it.

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It's interesting, my dad was a programmer back when programming was punching holes through a card and then it went through a reader but it was more a work thing than a hobby as he never owned his own pc or laptop until recently (and that is mostly for printing). He has digitalised fully now, there was a point where he flat out refused to own a digital camera or a mobile phone, all digital now.

 

I remember the day when he "rebought" a zx spectrum and we played it as a family once or twice, but other than that he really isn't in games at all, and can count on one hand the number of times he's played a game since (Nintendo wii bowling actually!). 

 

My mum on the other hand is a bit more involved, but the games tended to be single player rather than interactive. Her favourite games were pac man, Dr Mario, tetris which might be a little stereotyping of 'female gaming' as it were at the time. My dad got a nes mini recently and they've been playing a bit of that, though I think it's mostly dad watching my mum. I showed off my smb1 skills and finished it in 5 minutes without continues (sweated at the end as I bragged about it before starting!). 

 

Still on with gaming with mum, we played a lot of n64 goldeneye together, and this might have been down to my dad working funny hours and generally not being that interested while my mum would entertain me in my interest. Quake 3 on the ps2 got some family time with her too, so it was a weird mix. 

 

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