Are you a gamer? Or a once-upon-a-time gamer? With a 2014 consumer spend of over $22 billion, chances are you’re one of the 155 million Americans that play video games. Video gaming has come a long way since the days of
Pong, Pac-Man and
Asteroids. A
study published earlier this year by Entertainment Software Association (ESA) found that four out of every five households have at least one device used to play video games. What the average gamer looks like has changed too. ESA’s study reports that the average age of male video game players is 35 years old and that females now comprise 44% of the gamer community, with an average game player age of 43 years old.
While the quality of video games seems to change exponentially every few years, people still have a nostalgic affinity for classic 8-bit games. This past weekend, Columbia Pictures brought all of our favorite classic video game characters to the big screen with the release of
PIXELS, directed by Chris Columbus and starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan and Peter Dinklage.
In celebration of the film’s opening, our Experiential discipline has shared a few of their favorite video game memories and we bet some of their stories will sound familiar to you as well!
- “My favorite video game memory was defeating Dr. Robotnik with my dad’s coaching in ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ (1991). I also remember him congratulating me on my score, 32,810. I was 5 or 6 and this became the biggest number I knew at the time.” – Arthur Antonio
- “My favorite memories of playing video games were ‘Super Mario’ on the original Nintendo. My brother and I played that and ‘Duck Hunter’ every day, I mean EVERY DAY after school for hours! I was always Mario, of course, and made my little brother be Luigi. It was a very sad day in our household when we spent hours and hours blowing on the cartridges and beating on the console, only to realize that our Nintendo had died and gone to Nintendo heaven.” – Kandace Austin
- “I have never been into video games, like ever. For my older cousin’s 9th birthday, she received a game console with a lizard game (I honestly could not even tell you the name of it.) Anyway, we were really into this game on some high level that had a ghost theme. Suddenly, a ghost came out of nowhere and ate our lizard! I screamed bloody murder and somehow pushed my cousin off the bed where she went flying into the wall. We laughed so hard we were in tears and I peed my pants. We still laugh about it to this day, and that was the last time I ever played a video game.” – Stefannie Garcia
- “My mother purchased me my first Nintendo Gameboy in the early 90s. The game came with ‘Tetris,’ which is not the most exciting game for a kid as young as I was, but I still enjoyed it. One night I caught my mom playing Tetris and setting high scores with 141 lines. She was the best ‘Tetris’ player I’d ever seen… until my GRANDFATHER began to play. My grandfather, to this day at 70 years old, is still the best ‘Tetris’ player I have the honor of knowing and also still possess a Gameboy color with only one game. Yes, it is ‘Tetris.’” – Gerald Guidry
- “Growing up, I remember all of my friends having some kind of gaming system. However, my sister and I did not. Our parents never bought us one, but we also never really cared for one – we always liked playing outside with our friends in the neighborhood. I think it was my sister’s 10th birthday, and I was 12, when she received a videogame – it was ‘Pac-Man.’ It was one of those TV plug-ins with a joystick and one button to start them game. It eventually broke and our video gaming days were over. The next gaming system we got was the Nintendo Wii, but the only reason we wanted it was for the dance and Zumba games. Today, our Wii collects dust and is only used for Netflix, but my sister and I can agree that our Pac-Man plug and play is our favorite video game” – Divya Kumar
- “I got my first video game, a Coleco Telstar Colortron, for Christmas in 1980, when my parents finally gave in to my constant begging. It could only play Pong, and my parents figured I would quickly grow tired of it, and that would put a quick end to video gaming in our house. The only flaw in that plan was that my dad liked it as much as I did, so an Atari 2600 quickly followed, where he spent more hours than I did playing ‘Pitfall.’ My kids didn’t have to plead too much for a system, because I had been dying to play ‘Resident Evil.’ And we still break-out ‘Katamari Damacy’ every now and then for a good laugh.” – Michelle Langston
- “When my brothers and I were kids, our first gaming console was an Atari. We got it for Christmas one year and we were so excited. Every day after school we’d rush home to play ‘Mario Bros.’ When our favorite games would get worn out and wouldn’t come on, we always had to take the game out and blow into the cartridge to get it to play. If it didn’t work the first time, we’d keep repeating the process until it finally worked. Now when my nephews have problems with their games, I tell them to try that sure fire method but they just look at me like I’m crazy. They don’t believe me but it seriously worked.” – Jessica Martinez
- “My video game memory consists of always watching my older brother play, wishing he would give me a turn. When I did get a turn to play, I was obsessed with ‘Mario Kart,’ ‘Pa Rappa The Rappa’ (best game ever that no one knows about) and ‘Mortal Kombat’ (even though I mostly just randomly hit a bunch of buttons for that one).” – Marissa Schmitt