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[nush]

My dad used to have this irrational hate for me playing videogames. The life situation I was in at the time was I was 19, in full time work (working lots of overtime, because more money to save and more money to buy videogames) contributing to the household bills not into drinking, drugs, fighting or any delinquent behavior. I also paid for my consoles, games and TV myself in cash no debt.

But each weekend at least once or twice my dad would come barging into my room (It was clean, the dirtiest thing in it was my secret porn stash) raving about wasting my life playing computer games. Except for some reason he couldn't pronounce computer properly "Com-pooter", anyway it was a Super Nintendo. Then he'd go on how it just made BEEP BEEP BEEP noises, because the orchestral tones of said Super Nintendo sound exactly like an Atari 2600! Then he'd devolve into how com-pooter games are like DRUGS and I was ADDICTED.

This went on for about a year until my mum divorced him and I went to live with her, she didn't mind me playing games. I was no trouble and paid half the bills with her at the new place.

So GAF, were you unfairly or even fairly criticized for playing videogames by your parents too?

 

[Three]

Not really but when I was a kid my parents would hide my SNES somewhere in the house when trying to punish me for something. Me and my brothers would just search the place when they weren't there, play, and then put it back when they arrived.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Never, my father is everything to me.

He never judged me, and I always told him about the hobby with passion and enthusiasm, he liked it a lot when I talked about the advances in technology.

Although he was not a fan, he liked me to talk with him and he was always there for me.

My father is exemplary, one day I wish to be like him.

 

[Lone Wolf]

My ex mother in law would always judge me for playing video games. Meanwhile she and her husband watch about 8 hours of CNN a day. My gaming and TV time in a day wasn’t half that.

 

[nush]

My ex mother in law would always judge me for playing video games. Meanwhile she and her husband watch about 8 hours of CNN a day. My gaming and TV time in a day wasn’t half that.

That's the classic,

Watch TV mindlessly all day - OK
Marathon a TV series on a streaming service all weekend - OK
Play Videogames all day - Wait, hold on now....

 

[Aesius]

I grew up with time limits on games but eventually my parents gave up on that. My mom would also threaten to hide my controllers if I said I was too sick to go to school and she thought I was lying. Which I did a lot, to be fair. And it was usually to stay home and play video games...

 

[Shifty1897]

My parents were full on nutjobs about video games. The last system they got me was an N64 when I was 12. After that, nope, no more systems, you're too old for that. I ended up enterprising (selling burned music CD's and ADD medication) to afford my PS1, Dreamcast, and GameCube. Even then I had to hide how much I played by playing at night after they went to bed or just going over to a friend's house everyday and playing there.

Every time Dateline ran a child shooter story my parents would hide my gaming shit for a few weeks. Being a gamer kid post-Columbine was a fucking nightmare.

 

[Chastten]

Only a few times when we kept playing games after bedtime. We would always turn off the TV when we heard footsteps on the stairs but tube TV's made a noise and kept glowing for quite a while after you turned it off so they'd always know if we were still gaming.

We weren't allowed to connect our videosystems to the family TV downstairs because 'it would break the TV' so they just got us a small TV for upstairs. That's basically the most anti-game thing I remember from them. Otherwise they are very rational people

 

[greencoder]

I was playing games since I was 5, but gaming was completely banned for me when I was 14 (the last game I played then was Rayman Legends). So no gaming in my teen years, since they did and still do consider it a waste of time.

I grew up with time limits on games but eventually my parents gave up on that. My mom would also threaten to hide my controllers if I said I was too sick to go to school and she thought I was lying. Which I did a lot, to be fair. And it was usually to stay home and play video games...

I too grew up with time limit on games, 2-3 hours a day.

 

[Mr Hyde]

My mom and dad have never been angry with me for playing videogames. They've always been supportive of my hobby, even though they have never played themselves or have any interest in it whatsoever. But I've never been addicted to it or played irresponsible. I always did my chores when I lived at home, I went to school and did my homework, and when I became an adult I got a job and my own apartment, so they've never had a reason to get mad. They have also never said to me that I'm too old for video games or that it is a waste of time. They probably think that, but they've never said it to my face, knowing it would probably hurt me. They know video games is a big part of my life, that I've played my entire life and that I need it to be happy. They would never scold me for it or trying to convince me to stop playing.

 

[TexMex]

Dad definitely hated it. Was also extremely susceptible to any time the news would blame games for whatever bullshit was going on in the world. Doom, Mortal Kombat, etc. 90’s were rough.

 

[Soodanim]

I remember arguing my case at age 9 that me getting GTA wouldn’t make me steal a limousine. Even then I knew what they were saying on TV was nonsense, and I always knew the difference between a game and real life.

 

[StateofMajora]

That's the classic,

Watch TV mindlessly all day - OK
Marathon a TV series on a streaming service all weekend - OK
Play Videogames all day - Wait, hold on now....

Yeah wtf is it about those people? Are they really that blind or are they just unhappy?

My Dad watched tv all day and night but games were a waste of time apparently… (now watches cnn all day ffs)

What I knew from my childhood was that A. I’ll play games till I drop in defiance and B. I did not want to work until i’m 60 lol

 

[93xfan]

My Dad would always criticize and say I played too much. Probably right, but it was such a bummer at the time

 

[nush]

Yeah wtf is it about those people? Are they really that blind or are they just unhappy?

There's always that group of people that want to ban, censor or restrict certain media they actually don't consume themselves. be it Rock and Roll, erotic books or horror movies.so it Has no effect on them personally if they get their own way,

This should be banned!
Have you experienced that thing?
Well no, but I heard.....

Unhappy little failures in life flexing whatever authority they think have to compensate for it.

 

[AV]

Was more about how long I was spending on the PC in general. She definitely had my best interests at heart and just didn't want to see me spending 16 hours a day at the weekend playing Runescape.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

My father often came in and tried to understand what was going on on the screen.
I think he got better at it over time...

But other than that, my parents never really had a reason to have anything against my hobby(s).
It's not like I was only sitting at home and had no friends to interact with.

Hell, they bought me games for 18+ when I was 14
Which even I find pretty questionable now that I'm 30+.

 

[nush]

Hell, they bought me games for 18+ when I was 14

It's not like we already hadn't seen Terminator, Aliens, Die Hard, robocop, maybe some porn or at the very least Raider of the Lost Ark melting face Nazi by that age.

 

[Neo_GAF]

My dad used to have this irrational hate for me playing videogames. The life situation I was in at the time was I was 19, in full time work (working lots of overtime, because more money to save and more money to buy videogames) contributing to the household bills not into drinking, drugs, fighting or any delinquent behavior. I also paid for my consoles, games and TV myself in cash no debt.

But each weekend at least once or twice my dad would come barging into my room (It was clean, the dirtiest thing in it was my secret porn stash) raving about wasting my life playing computer games. Except for some reason he couldn't pronounce computer properly "Com-pooter", anyway it was a Super Nintendo. Then he'd go on how it just made BEEP BEEP BEEP noises, because the orchestral tones of said Super Nintendo sound exactly like an Atari 2600! Then he'd devolve into how com-pooter games are like DRUGS and I was ADDICTED.

This went on for about a year until my mum divorced him and I went to live with her, she didn't mind me playing games. I was no trouble and paid half the bills with her at the new place.

So GAF, were you unfairly or even fairly criticized for playing videogames by your parents too?

sounds the same like my father, except that he started to say that when i was 5(when i got my gameboy as a birthday gift) and until i moved out.
he sometimes even threatened to destroy everything.

 

[Banjo64]

My dad never got it. He could be a right nasty fucker about games. Now that he’s retired (he had a stressful job) and I’ve moved out we’ve got a great relationship though.

 

[BigBooper]

They didn't bug me when I was a young kid. My dad set quotas though, where if I wanted to play videogames for an hour, I had to read a book for an hour. That wasn't too bad because I also liked reading. When I was an older teenager it wasn't an issue. They left me alone.

 

[Bartski]

that time I almost failed my 2nd year of high school because of Fallout 2.

 

[STARSBarry]

I was in the extremely fortunate position to have both by if the rest of the thread is an indicator, not only intelligent but understanding parents.

My mother originally was concerned when I got my first console at 6 that I was spending too much time.

However I was told later that my dad pointed out that both radio and TV had gone through similar points where people where concerned about there impact on the generation. As an avid reader and music listener my dad had knowledge of how things like punk where treated in the 70's and drew the conclusion that it was like any new form of entertainment, misunderstood and feared due to lack of understanding. At that point my mother made it a point to attempt to be interested and to understand games going forward. This is why at birthdays and Christmas I tended to get bought wild card games I'd never heard of that then turned out to be legendary, it was her that bought me Phantasy Star II, Command & Conquer,Doom and later Lylat Wars and Zelda Ocarina of Time for example, because she kept an intrest for me even if she wasent interested in them herself.

I remember the one time they got angry is I was holed up on my room an entire weekend playing Tales of Symphonia on Game Cube close to some rather important exams (A levels) and then asked if I could skip a day of school, oh no...

God I remember my mum walking in one day and asking, "can you pause or is it online?" I answered Online and she said to finish off the match and then sort out the washing... I feel sad for the millions of kids this never happened to.

 

[IDKFA]

My dad didn't care. He let me play games right into the early hours. Even on school nights. It's why I absolutely failed in school and had to go back into studying in my late teens and early adult life.

I learned from that. I now make sure my son's gaming time is limited and he knows school work comes before games.

 

[lifa-cobex]

My parents fucking hated it.
I used to hide in my room quite a lot when I was a kid as my Dad was a cunt.

I don't think my Mum understood I used games as an escape so she equally hated them.
One of my earliest memories was of my Dad screaming at my mum for whatever reason he had. I think I was about 9 or 10 at the time.
He came storming upstairs and straight into my room. He started yelling how I was always on that fucking machine.
He picked up my PS1 and gave it a flying lesson from my window.

After he had fucked off to the pub my Mum came in to see me.
She told me to stop playing so much as it pissed him off.

When I was about 13/14 I got a PC. ALT, TAB was extremely useful to me for a long time.
"I'm doing my homework".

 

[nkarafo]

My dad would critisize me for playing video games, not for wasting my time but because he thought its stupid. He never grasped how games actually work. In his mind, it was like me pressing buttons as the game plays itself or something.

Until one day i decided to make him test that theory. The task was simple. He had to make Samus jump and make her land on the nearby platform.

After 10 or so tries he barely managed. But then he statred wondering how the hell am i doing all these finely controlled moves and combinations so fast... He never mentioned videogames after that.

 

[cireza]

My parents were pretty interested in the video-games I played and, I think, were convinced they were a great way to learn things and develop imagination. They were also a way improve my English. They had a very positive view of them.

 

[Valt7786]

Mine didn't really "get it", but they were cool about it, they'd buy me Mortal Kombat, Doom, Duke Nukem, Carmageddon etc when i was like 8 or 9 >_> but they knew I wasn't a mental case that would go out and hammer people.
Once I got into WoW in my late teens they were even more confused as to why I couldn't say, get to dinner straight away cause I had to finish the last boss in a dungeon or something and that would annoy them a little. Then Dad tried it himself, on the quiet, I suspect to try and find some common ground with me, got himself and my mother hooked on it and they're still playing to this day, raiding etc, so they get it now.

 

[Winter John]

When I grew up my old man restricted the amount of time we spent watching tv. He said it wasn't healthy to be inside all day, which was a pretty common sentiment. If it wasn't a school day then us kids were pretty much running around outside from morning til night. We had a Commodore 64 and later on a Sega, but mostly we played the games down at the arcade

 

[Pantz]

At 19 I didn't have a job at the time and played Counter-Strike late into the night. My dad didn't like me staying up late/sleeping in so he took away my keyboard. Well, I mapped forward to right click and buy menu to scroll wheel click and still played Counter-Strike late into the night, with mouse only.
I ended up annoyed and moved out to live with my brother and got a job shortly after that. So I guess it was a success?

Oh also many times he would turn the power breaker off if I was up late playing. Real cool, dude.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Nah. Even though my parents were strict about life matters (schoolwork, cleanliness, chores, being nice and helpful to others, etc) they were awesome about video games, because my parents are awesome people in general.

Since our first NES, my mom has called every video game system "the Nintendo." When we had the NES, she'd even join and try to beat some Mario levels herself, and she'd do that funny thing where she tried raising the controller higher thinking that it would make Mario jump higher. When we have big family reunions we all still laugh about mom doing that to this very day.

My dad didn't give a shit about my video game playing as long as I got good grades in school and helped around the house, which I always did. He was also a military dude back in the day so if there was ever a question about us having to stop video games for the day... It wasn't a fucking question, it was a command Anyway, my dad even sat down and watched me play for a few minutes here and there. I liked playing in hard mode so whenever I lost, he would jokingly/mockingly say "YOU LOSE... CONTINUE!?" at the top of his lungs in the style of the Tekken 2 announcer voice.

Recently I was visiting and having a couple of beers with my old man. A friend of his came by, and they started having a friendly debate about something. My father made a pretty good argument, after which he randomly said to his friend "YOU LOSE... CONTINUE!?" His friend was puzzled but my dad winked at me and we both started laughing.

My parents are rock stars.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Real live footage of nush when his parents tell him to stop playing video games:




It's a short video, but this is the most bizarre (funniest) part:

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

Parents, especially dad, are assholes about videogames and by extension electronics. It's hypocritical in a sense since they binge Netflix most of the time but videogames doesn't click. I'm so envious of families that support games and stuff

 

[BlackTron]

This reminds me of the one time my dad put the N64 in his closet because my teacher had an issue with my performance in 5th grade.

But I had already beaten and played Mario 64 to death so it was just an opportunity to spend more quality time with Mario RPG on SNES.

 

[RJMacready73]

i sometimes get mad at my kids for playing too much, typically goes like this

Me: Kids you have 10mins, dont be starting any new games
Me: Kids time to knock it on the head..
Me: RIGHT OFF THE IPADS/PS4
Me: I FUCKING MEAN IT OFF *proceed to grab controllers/ipads and switch em off mid game #nofucksgiven
Me: aaaaaand relax, now where are the kids..
Me: GET OFF FUCKING YOUTUBE/TWITCH and go read a goddamn book in your rooms!
Me: Fires up Cyberpunk2077

 

[AJUMP23]

I didn’t think my parents got mad. My dad said it was a waste of time but he kept buying them. The big thing for my parents was to go play outside and do other things. I was homeschooled in the 80s and 90s and we played games only after school.

 

[Aesius]

I too grew up with time limit on games, 2-3 hours a day.

That's not bad and actually pretty reasonable IMO. At one point I was down to one hour per day, which was brutal. And it happened shortly after the release of FFVII. I would actually take the strategy guide to school in my backpack so that I could read it between lessons/assignments to get my fix because of how little I got to play at home.

 

[GermanZepp]

I got my NES when a i was 6 ( a godfather gift ) my parents absolutely knew how i instanly loved videogames. The didn't care, i was going well on school and had made friends with good people. The real trouble was sharing the only TV in the house. God knows i beg them for years to buy me a Sega Genesis and a N64, but they were too expensive. The boguht me the Genesis at 12, a used Dreamcast at 14 ¿? wich a traded for a PS1 with many games. Later i saved and bought a PS2, 360, PS3, PS4, PS4pro, and more than 30 years has pased I loved all my times with videogames.

EDIT: My folks did disliked violent games. My mother often watch me play ICO and Shadow of the Colussus cause ejoyed the landscapes, i think she just wanted to hang out and share some time with me.

 

[Duchess]

Back in the 1990s, here in the UK the BBC screened a program that was aimed at video game addiction or the dangers of video games. It was either QED or Panorama or something.

The school I went to was troubled that I was so into video games (as these things were surely the work of the devil), so they told my parents to record it and make me watch it. I watched it, and it did nothing to dissuade me from my enjoyment of this medium of interactive entertainment.

The school concluded that games were evil, immature, for saddos, etc, etc. and were for little boys, blah blah blah.

Talk about getting things wrong, eh?

(it was, of course, a religious school - I've yet to see a person's video games devotion make them hijack a plane and use it to kill 3,000 people in a single morning, thinking they'll gain enough XP to level up)

 

[Fbh]

Probably in highschool when my grades sucked, though IMO it was more because I was lazy and unmotivated than because of videogames.
But my mom never really liked them in general so she has never been approving of me playing them. She was hoping I'd "outgrow" them in my late teens but now that I'm 30 and still playing I guess she has given up haha.

To be fair though, her entire tone regarding games changed a lot when she played and beat Journey (with a bit of help), which she loved. I think to an extent it made her see what I see in games and sharing that experience with her will always make one of my favorite games. She still hates violent games but at least she isn't as negative about gaming as a whole

 

[G-Bus]

Only thing I can remember is a weekend morning. I was up at 7 or 8 am for a world of warcraft raid in a really popular guild my buddy got me into. Pretty sure it was Naxxaramus.

Dad a was up a little after me. He made breakfast and got ready to go out. He comes back around 10 or 11 am and asks when I'll be done and I tell him we haven't even started yet.

He lost his shit. Never did the raid.

This was a bit of a turning point for me over the next few weeks because I started to realise how much time I was in game but not actually playing. Getting groups together, waiting on people. That sort of thing. completely stopped playing a month or two after that argument. This was 13 or so years ago.

Tried playing again a year or two ago and could not for the life of me get into it. Just the sheer amount of traversing terrain to get to areas was brutal.

 

[reinking]

My parents would not get mad. After all, they are the ones that purchased consoles and games for us. They would make us "go outside and play" at times by walking by and unplugging the older consoles before saves were a thing. My dad was evil like that until the Sega Master System generation. He locked himself in the bedroom and played Phantasy Star. I think he got it after that.

 

[dezzy8]

Not really but when I was a kid my parents would hide my SNES somewhere in the house when trying to punish me for something. Me and my brothers would just search the place when they weren't there, play, and then put it back when they arrived.

Lol sounds like my house. They would hide it in the same spot too.

 

[MiguelItUp]

My mom never really got mad at me, but there was a period between middle school and high school where I started staying up super late playing games. So, she'd make a point to check on me to tell me to go to bed cause I had school in the morning. She never really got mad, just annoyed because she thought I'd be late for school, but I never was. So eventually it just faded, lmao.

If you were curious about what I was playing around this time, it was a lot of Quake 2 multiplayer.

 

[BusierDonkey]

One summer my brothers and I were playing Super Nintendo at the lake and forgot to put it away. We kept it in a dresser drawer with a 13" TV on top. When we were done playing we were supposed to wrap up the controller and shut the drawer. Dad never cared much for video games, in his mind they were keeping us from more important things like drinking beer or farting.

In the middle of the night my drunk dad had to use the bathroom (the bathroom at the lake could only be accessed through the bedroom for reasons) and saw the drawer was open so he grabbed the SNES and threw it at the ground as hard as he could. Then he took a shit with the door open (as was tradition) and left.

That Super Nintendo still works today unlike Dad who is currently in a jar.

 

[YukiOnna]

I felt the full brunt of Asian parenting regarding this with a limit on purchases or any excuse to ground me. Especially during High School where I had to sneak in the time or resort to just ignoring them and providing proof it's not affecting my grades. My dad was unforgiving though, no matter what there was always an excuse to ridicule me about it "You could have done better if you weren't wasting your time" is what I'd hear a lot and still do despite being a working young adult who supports them... while also in my 2nd major.

It is what it is I guess. We'll never understand each other on it.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

There was this one time - I was 11 - when I thought I was alone in the house. I was playing the secret levels in Super Mario World and I started cussing like a sailor. Then at one point, I heard footsteps rapidly approaching the living room. Turns out my dad was taking a nap and he heard everything. I’d been very careful to avoid profanity in front of grownups until then, so I can imagine he was more shocked than pissed. Anyway, playtime was over for me that day and for a few days I was seriously afraid he’d sell all of my gaming stuff and never want to hear about that again. But he didn’t. He never believed too much in education through punishment. I learned a lesson or two that day though, and I guess my father did as well.

Other than that, only my grandma was absolutely against me playing video games. She was very religious and constantly afraid almost any piece of entertainment could get me on a bad road in life, so you can bet how scary it was to her to see my enthusiasm for vidya games. She was eager to blame “the computer” for everything wrong I did, or she imagined I did. She started saying that I was developing a squint. I guess the arrival of a Game Boy in my house made her realize she couldn’t win, though, because she didn’t make such a fuss about it even if I carried the thing with me most of the time during summer vacations. I think she thought that at least I could use the Game Boy outside, while consoles had me glued to the TV indoors.

 

[Morrie’s wig shop]

My parents were understanding, I mean hell my dads the one who came walking in with an Atari 2600 back in the summer of ‘82 when I was 5. When the NES finally released nationwide we got that on release. I watched the man beat Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) on a long weekend from start to finish when I was in 7th grade.

I believe a lot of their “coolness” and understanding came from them being young when I was born.

 

[Dream-Knife]

Growing up my dad was against M rated games. Other than that not really.