I used to be in the boy scouts.. I know, I know. My friend, whose father occasionally conducted meetings, used to tell stories about him and his friends (these were men in their forties!) lugging their computers with those huge CRT monitors around to each other's houses to play Half Life together. This was around '98 or '99 and it blew my mind that this was even possible. I don't know why the story still sticks in my mind; probably because of my fascination with games but also the fact that there were grown men geekier than my own father.
I do remember my dad strapping a concoction of rubber bands and paper clips to a Super Nintendo controller to farm lives for Contra 3. I remember him looking at me sternly saying, "Don't you dare touch this!"
I hope I will still be interested in playing games when I reach that age.