Editorial: Where did it all begin with gaming for you?

Everyone complains these days about gaming and the effects it has on people and kids. You will hear everything under the Sun about how a game was responsible for making a kid more aggressive or evil, or that kids are spending too much time inside the house, playing their games and not getting any exercise or social interaction. What no one ever talks about is the positives of allowing kids to play the games that challenge them and allow them to interact with others across the globe.

Gaming has always been a way of life for me, something I was drawn to, even at the tender age of six years old with my first Atari. That was a simpler time when there wasn't several genre's of games and choices. Pong was it for me back then!It's a way of life, and I had a blast everyday! As time progressed, I was one of the lucky kids who got one of the first Nintendo's day one of sales!

Mario was the man and his bro Luigi was okay too. Duck hunt had us aiming at the screen with a gun type of controller which sharpened focus and the Power Pad gave me hours of hot, sweaty exercise from running in place, the long jump and more. Yes, I would spend hours in my room comfortably, with the ability to do everything I could do outside and more. In most of the games I played, I also had to use intelligence and strategy to pass the higher levels and beat the game. All this, and I was only in my bedroom!

My thirst for gaming only grew and made me ever curious to try out new types of gaming. In my teen years, groups of friends and I would meet over a table top and play Dungeons and Dragons together. Creatively playing a character and socializing with others my own age was a kick ass time! That was when my real love came into the picture, RPG gaming. That was were it was at for me.

I began with “Vampire the Masquerade” and other free form versions of the original. With online play, I had to use my imagination as well as actually learn graphically how to use Adobe Photoshop and similar software just so that I could create an avatar for my character. It went further when I had to learn some HTML coding so that my Avatar would upload to the site that I played on. This along with becoming a hell of a writer which was how I communicated every second, action, thought and feeling in which my character experienced. I was a great storyteller, and that provided for hours of mental mind blowing fun! Think of it as table-top D&D but online.

Now, as technology has advanced, all of this is already done for you in terms of at least the graphical aspects and the quests with all the MMO games running around and now we have everything going mobile as well! With all of my experiences, the games I've played, and the characters I've lived, you may ask me what it all did for me?

My answer is quite simple, although I didn't play outside as much as other kids and yes I loved more gore in my games than the normal person, I found that my love of gaming created more love and opportunity in my life and I couldn't be happier, especially now I can play games on my Android devices all I want.

My husband and I met gaming online and our family includes two mini gamers and one future gamer, and we own a successful site that is based mostly on gaming and all things related to Android gaming. This was what it all did for me, and my mother couldn’t be prouder!

Enough about me, I want to hear about our fans! Where did it all start for you? What was your first system you played games on? What did you learn or get out of it? What was the first cherry-popping game that officially birthed you into nerdville with the rest of us?

DroidGamers loves our fans and we would love to hear from you all.