Like Pike and others I've never not played vidya, it's been a part of my life since I was a wee babby and I devote more time to it than anything else. I first played stuff on my dad's PC in the late 80s, and my first own system was an Amstrad CPC (So it's a wonder I grew to love vidya given that! ). On and off over the years I've had a Master System, Mega Drive, PS1, PS2, XBox, 360, Game Gear, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, DS, and 3DS, as well as various gaming PCs - I just built a new one a few months ago actually!

Although I'm not jazzed about the direction mainstream videogames has been going for the last few years, I can't say we're living in a bad time for gaming or anything. Between Steam, GoG, and emulators, I can play damn near anything I'd want to from the past, and it seems a bit jejune to suggest gaming is in a bad place in a time when XCOM, GTAV, The Walking Dead, Arkham City, Dishonored, Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis IV, and so on and so forth all came out recently.

That said these whippersnappers today whose first game was Halo don't know trout about trout and should smurf off and die