Who helped support your gaming habits growing up?

[AznKhmerBoi]

Was it your mother, father, aunts, uncles, etc....?

For me its my father who bought me the games while my mother would scold him for doing so because it kept me away from my books lol.

I remembered when i was younger my father would always take me to the flea market on saturdays. I enjoyed walking around looking at random things, especially the swords and knives stand, of course my dad wouldnt buy me them, even though he lets us watch movies like Jackie Chan "SuperCop"

My second favorite stand is the video games section, i would stand there and look around at other games i didnt own. Even though sometimes i couldnt convince my dad to buy me a new game, i really enjoyed talking with the stand owner about what games are good or bad. Note this was before the internet time so of course getting video games info are usually through word of mouth or magazines.

And of course the greatest moment coming back from the flea market is coming back with something, that for me is of course a brand new game for my super nintendo, no matter how bad the game was i would play it to death because thats what a 10 year old would do back in the 90s.

There are plenty of wonderful times i spent with my family and it is very sad to see some these hobby disappear through the change of time.

PS: My father didnt play video games

[Hazerd]

Mostly friends, Nintendo Power Magazine, and of course my own desire, but back when i was 10 i would play the games i had over and over because i couldnt just go out and buy a new one, or when there wasnt the interwebz you could just go download a emulator and rom.

Gaming is just too accessible these days.

[BoringSupreez]

My dad got me into PC gaming, and my cousin got me into console gaming. My dad doesn't play games himself, but my cousins plays tons.

[harper]

Gaming is just too accessible these days.

Agreed. But I like to do it the old fashioned way.

I didn't really have gaming habits growing up, but it's safe to say that it's all my brother's fault that I like video games as much as I do now. haha
If it weren't for him I probably never would've gotten my very own N64 (because I wouldn't have known that such a thing existed).

Also, I never hung out with him or anything, but I had a cousin who was literally obsessed with all things Sega. I wonder if he still has all of his stuff from back in the day. I was too young to know what all he had, but it'd be interesting to know now.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Myself mainly. The first 3 years or so I actually got my parents to buy me gaming related items. After that, it was all me. I had to work to get money (ehh, pretty much get money for Birthday/Christmas, but I did have to work for it the rest of the year). Friends and the internet were the only thing that kept me in gaming. I found though, that I have the mindset of a retro gamer with the interests of an all around gamer. I won't put a game down until I finnish it or get to a point where I decide I most deffinetely don't like it. I thought about selling around the time the generation moved, but my friends got me to stay in, and we played late nights of Gears of War for a long time. Really, a large part of my love for the series is keeping me in gaming.

[SwooshBear]

My dad started me with Nes and Ps1, while my aunt "gave" me my cousin's Snes around the same time. Quotation marks included because he took it back like 2 or 3 years ago (although I still have most of the games, I miss TMNT IV.) Once my dad got a launch Ps2, I've supported myself since then.

[hashiriya1]

My parents and uncles.

I was about 5 years old when I was given a Famicom and a few games (I still have it and it still works). The only problem was I couldn't buy games for it stateside so I would have to wait until family members (mainly uncles) went to Asia so they could get games for me. My family always had business in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, so I would have a mix of authentic games from Japan and pirated Famicom carts from HK. That's how it all began.

[Xeogred]

Probably my late grandfather. My mom and I lived with my grandparents for a few years when I was pretty young and they really spoiled me, haha. I usually got to rent a game like once a week (was Megaman games 90% of the time), didn't go to day care so I would just wake up every morning to play Blaster Master, and then my grandpa and I always did co-op on the TMNT games and would clear them. They bought me every Nintendo console up to the Gamecube for a Christmas whenever they were new. Good times.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Had an uncle that was really into gaming: NES, Genesis, Commodore 64, you name it... He was the first person to buy me video games without me asking for them first, he seemed excited that I had picked up the hobby. The first two games he got me were Zelda I & II. I can still remember how enchanting those gold cartridges looked the first time I laid eyes upon them.

My parents never liked video games. They begrudgingly agreed to buy me two games a year: for Christmas and my birthday. 1995 was a good year, I got Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III. I'm glad I had good taste even as a young kid, the games from my childhood have all aged well in terms of both price and quality. Imagine if I had wasted my two-games-a-year wishes on Bubsy and Awesome Possum.

[Xeogred]

On that note my parents still make fun of me about gaming still to this day, especially my dad. It's like his go to joke conversation or something, I'm just "always playing videogames all day" and crap.

And there he is in his room playing the guitar at least once a day...