I've seen similar questions like this before, and it's always a difficult thing for me to answer, as I can't remember a time when I didn't play games.
Born in '75.. Earliest I can recall playing games was probably in 1980, where I would play Monopoly with my brothers. We had other games, like Perfection, Booby Trap, Scrabble (which I played later), Sorry, Frustration, Mad Magazine Game (which was like reverse Monopoly), Pay Day, trivia pursuit. All these games we played here and there. We also got the very first Canadian Monopoly edition. This was far far before Monopoly was heavily licensing their product for other "versions". At around 1983 or so, my friend and I and his brother really got into playing RIsk at his house. I never had a copy back then. This was old old style Risk, where the armies were not little figures, but odd shapes, like an elongated Astericks
Eventually I got games like Fireball Island, Pictionary, and so on. In 1984 (or 85?) my oldest brother got "BattleTech" and "Starfleet Battles". He taught me BattleTech and I in turn taught my friends. My other friend also got "Fortress America" at this point, and by 1987 I was starting to dabble into Role Playing Games. I also got "Dungeon" and "Mage Stones" around this time, and enjoyed both of those quite a lot, as did my friends. Around 87 or 88 I got "Thunder Road" which was a mad max style game. I loved it, and it somehow disappeared from my collection in the early 90s, only game to have vanished. I believe I loaned it to someone and never got it back, but I am not sure.
In the 90s was typical games, Lots of RIsk, but Taboo, Pictionary, Scrabble, and so on. The odd Battletech game for nostalgia. I got the first Lord of the Rings RIsk at this point as well.
In 1996 I started hearing about Settlers of Catan online. I discovered Board Game Geek around this time. I googled "top 10 board games" figuring "Ok, RIsk, Monopoly, scrabble" will all be on that list. (this may have been late 90s sometime. I forget exactly when.)
What I saw was a list of very strange games I had never heard of. Puerto Rico? WTF was Puerto Rico? I started to investigate more, and was convinced that I needed to get my hands on Settlers of Catan. But no where sold it near me. That was until a comic store near me (that had just opened) got a few copies in, because they had several customers asking about it.
I bought it, invited a friend who loved games as well over, and we were in awe of it. Shortly after that, we got Munchkin, Carcassone, and various expansions.
From there, I have kept buying games, but I keep it as close to a minimum was possible. I know how easy I can get out of control with it. I probably have about 40-50 games right now, and have two cabinets filled, although many of these are older games too that I can't yet get rid of.
With young kids, and a busy schedule, I find it hard to get together with friends and play games. I wish I could do it each week, when I was dating my wife, we used to play a weekly Risk game each Sunday Night with my best friend. I miss that. I wish I could have a monthly get together, but that seems near impossible. Right now It's about once every 3 months, but as of now, we played once back in may, and before that was last october.. So we've gone through a dry spell lately.
I've seen similar questions like this before, and it's always a difficult thing for me to answer, as I can't remember a time when I didn't play games.
Born in '75.. Earliest I can recall playing games was probably in 1980, where I would play Monopoly with my brothers. We had other games, like Perfection, Booby Trap, Scrabble (which I played later), Sorry, Frustration, Mad Magazine Game (which was like reverse Monopoly), Pay Day, trivia pursuit. All these games we played here and there. We also got the very first Canadian Monopoly edition. This was far far before Monopoly was heavily licensing their product for other "versions". At around 1983 or so, my friend and I and his brother really got into playing RIsk at his house. I never had a copy back then. This was old old style Risk, where the armies were not little figures, but odd shapes, like an elongated Astericks
Eventually I got games like Fireball Island, Pictionary, and so on. In 1984 (or 85?) my oldest brother got "BattleTech" and "Starfleet Battles". He taught me BattleTech and I in turn taught my friends. My other friend also got "Fortress America" at this point, and by 1987 I was starting to dabble into Role Playing Games. I also got "Dungeon" and "Mage Stones" around this time, and enjoyed both of those quite a lot, as did my friends. Around 87 or 88 I got "Thunder Road" which was a mad max style game. I loved it, and it somehow disappeared from my collection in the early 90s, only game to have vanished. I believe I loaned it to someone and never got it back, but I am not sure.
In the 90s was typical games, Lots of RIsk, but Taboo, Pictionary, Scrabble, and so on. The odd Battletech game for nostalgia. I got the first Lord of the Rings RIsk at this point as well.
In 1996 I started hearing about Settlers of Catan online. I discovered Board Game Geek around this time. I googled "top 10 board games" figuring "Ok, RIsk, Monopoly, scrabble" will all be on that list. (this may have been late 90s sometime. I forget exactly when.)
What I saw was a list of very strange games I had never heard of. Puerto Rico? WTF was Puerto Rico? I started to investigate more, and was convinced that I needed to get my hands on Settlers of Catan. But no where sold it near me. That was until a comic store near me (that had just opened) got a few copies in, because they had several customers asking about it.
I bought it, invited a friend who loved games as well over, and we were in awe of it. Shortly after that, we got Munchkin, Carcassone, and various expansions.
From there, I have kept buying games, but I keep it as close to a minimum was possible. I know how easy I can get out of control with it. I probably have about 40-50 games right now, and have two cabinets filled, although many of these are older games too that I can't yet get rid of.
With young kids, and a busy schedule, I find it hard to get together with friends and play games. I wish I could do it each week, when I was dating my wife, we used to play a weekly Risk game each Sunday Night with my best friend. I miss that. I wish I could have a monthly get together, but that seems near impossible. Right now It's about once every 3 months, but as of now, we played once back in may, and before that was last october.. So we've gone through a dry spell lately.
Although I do play occasionally with my family...