For me it was playing flash games on Addicting Games, Armor Games, and sometimes Mini Clip. I never had any consoles when I was young.
[–] chriswearly ago
Other than some really old floppy's my dad had from working at Taco Bell from the late-90s or early 00s, the earliest games I played were from RealArcade. Games like Insaniquarium, Gruntz, Hamster Ball (I beat it btw, best win I ever experienced :D).
There's also a game I played, a click-adventure game of a boy and his companion (bear?) on an island after they landed on it. Can't remember the name, but that was my favorite game after I beat it :')
[–] [deleted] ago
Pretty sure it was in 1981, went on vacation to Disney World (going from Oklahoma) at our hotel two girls I had a crush on were standing in-front of this strange looking box and randomly hitting the bottom of it with their flip-flops. I finally worked up the courage to walk up to them and they let me play what was my first encounter with Pacman. I had no idea what to do and didn't get when I should run from the ghosts and when I should chase them. The hitting with the flip-flops was I guess my first encounter with a 'hack' because instead of dropping quaters they had figured out that by hitting it they would get free games. I was maybe 8 at the time, and I did score a 'bunt' (not sure if that's a thing) but I got to hold hands with one of them while we watched her friend play. First time with a game and my first holding hands. Greatest vacation ever!
My earliest memory of gaming is watching my friend play Pokemon Red at his house in '99. He was in Cerulean City, but hadn't yet beaten Erika. We ended up watching the anime series too, it was an episode where they were all at the beach. About a month later I got both Red and Blue at my Grandparents, which I also remember quite vividly.
[–] compbioguy ago
My parents and I would play this new game called space invaders in the arcade at the seattle center. When it came out on the atari 2600 we got it right away