How To Introduce Your Significant Other to Games

Yes, that's my wife in that picture from many years ago, sharing an extremely nerdy gaming moment with me. I've heard the subject brought up thousands of times on gaming sites and podcasts, what's the gateway game to get my girlfriend/fiancee/wife into gaming? Well, I've learned many lessons while trying to introduce my wife to things I enjoy, and I thought I might impart some of my wisdom.

You see, that term gateway game is a myth. The gateway game doesn't exist, it's entirely up to the person playing. Just because they haven't played a lot of games doesn't mean they won't have their own tasted in games. An example of some of the games my wife enjoys now, Animal Crossing, The Sims, Harvest Moon, any sort of dungeon hack (Diablo, Untold Legends), RTS's (I'm not a big RTS player so she only plays the ones I have like Age of Empires and Starcraft), Castlevania. You might have noticed that I dipped into some pretty hardcore game genres when listing the games she likes. Don't be afraid to experiment with what you introduce. Early in our relationship I burned her copies of Diablo and Age of Empires, not being a big PC gamer its all I had that we could get online to play together. She very quickly took to those and has probably logged tons more time with them then I have.

Once you have an idea of what tastes they have and you know what you want to try to introduce to them, the next step is to not act superior about it. I made the mistake once of watching my wife fail to achieve 100% on a Guitar Hero song set to easy, so I went back and played it on medium and got 100%. It didn't go over very well. They don't care how good you are at a game, if you go waltzing in there and crush them and then laugh about how bad they are, they probably won't come back again. If they are doing something wrong, suggest other ways for them to do it by saying things like "I usually find it easier to do this..." or "You should try this...". Don't tell them they are doing it wrong.

My final suggestion was learned from my complete failure to get my wife into any of my music. If they suggest a game they want to play, do not under any circumstance say how terrible a game it is. Too many times of me telling my wife that music she thinks is good is actually terrible has completely shut her off from even attempting to like my music. I had already learned this lesson by the time Wii Music had come out, my wife thought the commercials looked like a lot of fun and suggested we buy it. Instead of telling her straight out what a shitty game it was and leaving it at that, I instead explained to her why it wasn't worth our money. I politely brought up how its more of a toy for kids, and that you don't really have much control over what you are playing, you just move the wiimote in the right motion and music plays. If you explain to them why they won't like it it will go over much better then if you just say it sucks. That's something I'm still struggling with every time she sees Carnival Games in the store and says we should get it since I know nothing about it except that it most likely sucks.

Now, I'm by no means an expert, but these are the lessons I've learned from my wife. Maybe one day you'll have a significant other who's hounding you to go buy Punch Out and Rock Band but you keep telling them you have to save money. Give it a try, and let me know how it works out. I really should go buy Punch Out and Rock Band though.