… Yes?

Start wherever. Buy games with interesting covers or play free demos.

This game recommendation thingy might be helpful: https://apps.quanticfoundry.com/surveys/start/gamerprofile/

In the profile you choose what you are looking for in a gaming experience - it doesn’t matter if you don’t know yet or need to make up some answers. There are questions like “How important is working towards a common goal with other players?”

It’s a place to start anyway.

What gaming is like for a non-gamer

This guy had his non-gaming wife try different games, very enlightening for your purposes

I’d say start with some of the most popular games, like Mario and Pokemon. Those are the two biggest video game franchises in the world, they’re very accessible and even decades later still a ton of fun.

edit: FWIW, Nintendo is a problematic video game company and trying to destroy video game preservation of their games (and trying to prevent community-run video game competitions/tournaments of their games), but they still have made some of the best video games of all time.

I’m a 30-something woman myself. I’ve been gaming longer than I’ve had a phone. Here’s my two cents:

You’re already into videogames. Fuck what the haters say about mobile gaming not being “”“true”“” gaming (whatever the heck that means), they’re just sour they can’t game whenever wherever without investing a ton of time. Then again, maybe I’m just mad because I’ve recently invested a ton of time into Youtube’s playables.

If you want to get into PC or console gaming, I recommend starting off with popular E rated games in the genres you already know you like. Generally these games are more complex than mobile games, but this type will usually introduce difficulty curves to gradually transition you into their mechanics and complexity and teach you to be a master without having to look up training online.

If you want to branch out, start with genre-bending/-blending games. I’m personally a fan of puzzle-platformers, as those are my two favorite genres; while I’m not big on card games, they recently had an explosion in popularity, so there’s a blend of just about every genre you could want.

I’m 31 and I only really started playing games around 4 years ago, apart from playing on bootleg NES consoles or C64 as a kid.

It is worth it if you have fun doing it, and you probably will!

If you don’t know where to start, you probably still haven’t figure out what genres you’d be into.

You might like Steam Deck, an affordable console-like handheld PC, because:

• It offers a wide variety of games from all generations, so if you want to experiment with different genres you can always find something for yourself - you can purchase a game on Steam store and if it’s not for you, just return it below 2h of gameplay
• Very user friendly, easy to navigate for non-techies, despite being PC, for the most part it just works, great entry for folks with no prior experience with PC gaming
• It’s a handheld! Take it with you anywhere easily, play in bed, on couch, toilet, whatever. If you’re used to playing on a phone, this might be appealing
• you can still dock it as a regular PC and have mouse+keyboard+external screen if you want to try gaming this way
• if you want to tinker to explore even further, you can emulate older consoles, play with 3rd party launchers, use it for other things than gaming, even replace the software completely - it is all possible

Other choices are perfectly valid like Nintendo Switch, Xbox or PS5, but they’re within their respective closed ecosystems. With Xbox and PS5 you’re also stuck with TV. Consoles have limited backwards compatibility, so for example Switch only supports games for Switch, PS5 supports games for PS5 and PS4, and it’s a bit better with Xbox iirc.

If you want Nintendo Switch (if games like Mario or Zelda are appealing to you), maybe wait a little bit as they’re cooking new generation for release soon-ish, and the current one is old and miserable in terms of performance.

A lot of women I know who aren’t the typical “gamer” type really enjoy Stardew Valley. It’s a little farming game where you live in a town, foster relationships with the townspeople, and generally go about small town life. Very cute game, especially fun with friends.

Also Minecraft, it’s very open ended and there are many ways to play it.

As for how to start, an affordable laptop will run both of these fairly well, if you want Nintendo games you’ll probably have to get a Nintendo Switch.

Definitely make a Steam account though, you’ll find pretty much all the games you could want in one place there (Minecraft is separate).

Get a switch lite, yeah. I highly recommend playing star fox 64, Pokemon stadium, and the older legend of Zelda games. They are very good entry points into gaming and are all available via a Nintendo online membership.

My wife is a 30+ woman and she loved (among others) OneShot, World of Goo, and Final Fantasy XV.

OneShot is an atmospheric, story-based game with some puzzle elements and a lot of lovable characters. On the flip side, there’s a lot of walking and it’s easy to get lost. Nevertheless, there’s a deep connection you as the player can build with the characters and the world they inhabit.

World of Goo is a physics-based building game, where you build bridges and towers out of cute sentient rubber-like balls, but beneath the solid physics, art and music there lies a deep social commentary too.

Final Fantasy XV is the most mainstream of these, but it is an entry into the FF games specifically designed for newcomers in mind. It follows four main and several supporting characters on a journey that starts as a road trip interspersed with beginner-friendly but still jaw-droppingly well rendered and animated combat and slowly but surely escalated to an epic catharsis.

Stardew Valley.

I would highly recommend Portal and Portal 2 as primers for basically all your 3D games. Not only did Yahzee give The Orange Box in general a glowing review, but they teach you basic gaming mechanics almost intuitively.

Can I go completely 180 and suggest programming as a hobby? If you want a hobby where you’re in a computer. Then try learning to program little things. If you work on a computer then it’ll make things easier for you in the future, it’ll keep your brain sharp and teaches you problem solving.

Yes. Start with Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing. From there, post threads asking for suggestions based on what you liked.

Just avoid games that cost a lot or have lots of micro transactions. Its like smoking cigarettes, better to not start.

App games are video games so if you think playing on your phone is worth it, then playing on a dedicated gaming device should be worth it too.

You can start by choosing a platform. You can stick to mobile (Switch, Steam Deck), go console (Xbox, PS5, Switch), or a gaming PC.

Its such a vast ocean, I would just start with whatever catches your attention. Theres so many different kinds if games for all types of people that you should probably assess what you think is fun, and pick a game sort of involved with that? I tend to like cooperative games, RPGs, and games about exploring more than I like competitive games like First Person Shooters. I also really like racing games.