Gaming was always difficult in my house and with my immediate family.
My brother tended to sneak over next door for a bit of weed and some gaming on the Atari Football and BiPlane, neither of which ever ---smurfing--- worked when I came around about ten years later. Instead I pumped quarters into Tempest, Tail Gunner and, if anyone was there, which was an astonishingly rare occurrence, four player pong. Guy had four or five cocktail pongs only one ever worked. The weed was also gone, which I'm not entirely sure helped or made things worse.
Tempest and Tail Gunner took a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- soon after some remodeling the owner did (claiming sawdust short circuited the cabs still kicking myself for never offering to buy them off of him).
So I bought myself an Atari XEGS with the quarters that didn't go into the cabs a few years later. My dad wasn't too keen on it, but my mom was a little more forgiving having taken a computing class at a nearby center a few years prior. The XEGS stayed in their bedroom for years with many a weekend spent trying my hand at AtariBASIC or playing Dark Chambers, Moon Patrol, Star Raiders or a handful of other games.
I eventually graduated like most people into various other console generations (never trying any programming other than back on the XEGS until I entered college). My father was truly adamant that the family would not get a "true" computer since the $2,000+ price tag could be put to better use elsewhere, like the snowmobile he never bought or the house insulation he always promised.
I love my father, but I'll be the first to say, he was a cheap bastard. The year I broke my arm, my father wanted to wait until the next day to make sure it wasn't a sprain because he felt the hospital visit would be too much. Pure ---smurfing--- agony trying to sleep that night with a broken arm.
Enough ranting. I got my first "true" PC entering college and I spent way too much for it. Around $1200 plus interest on my first credit card for a, IIRC, a 500MHz AMD K6II+DVD (no actual drive, just the hardware based decoder) from Rat Shack.
It was around that time I realized that my my own grandmother always tried her hardest to hide my, "nasty gaming habit," from my cousins. Some of which have gone off to work for various game companies around the bay area years later. "Dear old Grandmother" made every effort to prevent me from gravitating to the living room or one of the kids room every holiday to play, "those nasty dirty games." This was the NES era so I'm not sure what was nasty about Link or Mario.
My grandfather was far more supportive but yielded considerably to my grandmother.
That was the status quo until I obtained my PS2 and brought it to my mother's house one holiday. My mom was hooked for the first time, on all things, GTA:VC. Her favorite thing to do? Hijacking cars... go figure.
Not long after that, it came out with the rest of my extended family that I was a hard core gamer. Unfortunately, it was that same time I decided to severe nearly all ties with the rest of my extended family. My father and both grandparents are long gone by then. My mother's side has unfairly chastised me for my choices in life and my father's side well... I don't know what they think of me. They like to invite my mother, still, to holiday parties, but not myself or my immediate family. So ---fudgesicle--- 'em.
My gaming is largely private. Most of my family know very little about what I play or collect outside of what the immediate cousins on my wife's side find out from my kids. Ah well....
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Topic: Games and Your Parents (Read 2217 times)
