Sid Meier's Pirates and Minecraft

Probably doom/Wolfenstein 3D (the original DOS title, obv.)... That started the whole thing, but FF6 and 7 were also huge catalysts for it back in the day. I think FF6 on the SNES was the first game I was addicted to. I couldn't have been much older than 10 at the time.... I can't say that I really understood the plot, but I enjoyed it a lot.

FF7 and 8 were both fun too.

After FF 6, we got LTTP and that's also huge for me. I've fallen away from LOZ, because I don't want to pay the Nintendo tax....

Minecraft

I honestly couldn't tell you exactly which game that hooked me for life. My first exposure was when I spent summers with my grandparents on their farm.

Grandpa and I would ride his trike out to the fields, and we'd... do stuff? To the plants? I don't really remember the work.

I do remember that work ended at noon, and we zipped into town on the trike. And we went to the pub. Grandpa would get me a root beer, and we'd split a poutine. Then he'd give me a roll of coins. I can go nuts on the arcade machines, he can have way too many beers, and WE DON'T TELL GRANDMA.

Anyway, a half century later I'm a recovering alcoholic. Good times!

Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country

Two great side-scrollers

Honestly? This hole in the wall food store in my home town managed to pick up a pretty early release of the arcade game Robotron. I was instantly enthralled, visiting arcades any time I could. From there, I played on friends' Atari 2600s and Commodores until I managed to get my own C64, and I've never stopped since. From there, I migrated through their products and stayed a diehard fan till the mid-90's - C128, Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, and Amiga 2000.

I played a few early x86 games on demo machines in stores, but I didn't finally relent and build my own x86 rig until the release of the Descent 1 demo, which single-handedly destroyed all of my remaining resolve. I already considered myself a pretty consistent gamer, but that was the nail in the coffin. The rest, as they say, is history. It was only 4 years later that EverQuest came out, too, and that swallowed me whole.

Pretty sure it was Rick Dangerous on C64.

For me it was more a system than an specific game. I got a second hand GameBoy when I was like 5 or 6 and have been gaming consistently since then. Probably the highlight of that period was Super Mario though.

The first game I ever really wanted to get good at was the arcade game spy hunter. The first time I got the speed boat was a dopamine high I've never recreated.

Xmen arcade game

I wouldn't call it a hobby, just some entertainment to pass the time/hang out with friends.

It was Counter-Strike 1.6. I didn't leave the house the summer I discovered it as a kid.

Breakout, Sokoban, Prince of Persia, Command & Conquer, Tilt!, Space Invaders, Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, Fallout, Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Wolf3D.

This was in the '90s but some of those games were already quite old by that time.

Mario Bros 1-3

The early 90s Lucas Arts adventure games. Most notably Monkey Island 2.

Sonic 2. I was like 3 at the time.

Age of Empires II

I'd have to go all the way back to pinball, since I've always been fascinated with games.

But the very first video game that really sucked me in was Batman on the NES. I'm talking fully immersed; no awareness of my surroundings. Jacked in.

The music paired with the grim visuals was such a vibe. Just playing it made me feel cool. My parents had to drag me away from that birthday party haha.

Lemmings or Descent, I don’t remember.

Counter-Strike 1.3

Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 started it, Toy Story 2 for PSX detonated it.

I always clicked with it really hard as a kid, but my parents banned me from it, so I just wound up making friends so I could play OG Red Alert or Commander Keen or whatever. I also played Tabletop 40k from a pretty early age, which my parents were more permissive of. In tabletop I have a very good systemising mind, so I wind up being the rules person, but I'm not super obsessed about any one system (I am a little "obsessed" with how few people play something other than D&D systems).

Motocross Madness 2, baby. That's when I knew...

Memory, Monkey Island, Diablo 1 and Street Fighter 2

Daggerfall was the first game that really got its hooks in me. It had everything I wanted, a huge open world, tons of different items, getting to dress up my character :)
I must have spend hours just visiting every single town, playing tourist and just ignoring the story. It was all about exploring and role playing for me.

Kingdom Hearts II

That game is the reason the X button stopped working on my PS2 controller when I was like 4 or 5

Pokemon games and older 2D Zelda games. I really got into it when I found Halo

Monkey Island 2

Super Mario Bros 3. Never beat it until the Allstars version on SNES, but it's the first video game I remember playing. Or maybe it was Gauntlet, but SMB3 was the funner one.

Pokémon FireRed

Myst.

Dune II

Watched my dad play kings quest 2 when I was a kid.

Bubble Bobble on the C64 :)

Neverwinter Nights and Roller Coaster Tycoon when I was a little kid. I watched my dad play Neverwinter and had to indulge in my own tiny fantasy to play as a "dragon." Still at it.

Evercrack and Diablo 2 were my starter games

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Planescape: Torment was the game that popped my cherry, my very first. After that, I played links awakening, and that was it I've been a gamer ever since.

The first game I regularly played may very well have been Chex Quest. Unless you count Math Blaster. Or maybe Chip's Challenge.

Pokémon Gold, when I was 8, got it for Christmas. Technically my first game was Battleship, which I opened first, but I probably spent thousands of hours playing Pokémon Gold. :) I've played almost every Pokémon game since, up until Scarlet/Violet, which I haven't gotten yet, but maybe I will eventually.

Age of Empires 2 on my parent's crappy old laptop.

Super Mario Bros. from the famicom

Sonic Heroes

First games i played were Pokémon and super Mario, but I think the first game that REALLY got me hooked was Banjo Kazooie.