1998

Generally speaking, I knew PC gaming would open me up to a lot of titles unavailable elsewhere. I’d briefly played Duke Nukem 3D at someone’s parents house and holy shit you can see nude women in PC games? Sign me up!!!

But it wasn’t until the high school I was about to start attending sent parents letters saying student’s reports would need to be typed going forward that I was able to convince my mom to finally get a PC. I immediately got Command & Conquer and Half-Life and HOLY SHIT people do something called “modding” and you can play the game in endless different ways, making my original purchase give me access to potentially limitless content?

Almost 30 years later and I’m still regularly playing Half-Life mods and I work in IT.