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Curious to see the responses, and maybe you can throw in your own stories of how you broke someone into gaming

And before you complain about the options, I was told I picked too many and had to narrow it down to ten. If you don't see something you want to vote on just tell us whatever game or genre you choose in your post

Edit: I wanted to add survival horror but am already at the ten option poll limit, so I'll put it with stealth since both genres revolve around avoiding combat

As for my personal choice, platformers. Just have to start with an easy one

Platformers or simple tower defence games. Relaxed and unpressured is initially what you need. Nothing worse than trying to get a friend into gaming and taking them on Quake 3 where they get massacred over and over.

Co-op games are also great of there not too hard.

Not my cup of tea, but a puzzler is always an easy intro.

Bejeweled seems to be a good one.

Beat 'em ups and run 'n guns. They're the best for pick up and play and, although hard, they don't get frustrating if you credit feed. You might think that is lame, but my ex-girlfriend started playing Metal Slug like that and one day she went to the arcade and just 1 cc'ed Metal Slug 5.

I have not posted here in a long time, apologies! College is intense! Anywho, I would for sure say Platformers. There are enough of them that are very easy and accessible for someone who knows nothing about games, to play and really get hooked. The obvious example (yet appropriate) is Mario. How many people do you know who know nothing about games, but have played Mario? This is the perfect example. Something like a puzzle game, or even a FPS can sometimes be too difficult with too many buttons(what I have heard old people say), whereas in Mario or even something like Jak and Daxter, there is usually not much to grasp early on. Now we also find that games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit are getting people who don't play games to start, this is an interesting introduction, but I find these games to be more like mini-games rather than a full gaming experience. So yeah...Platformers would probably be the best introduction to gaming

(I feel like a puzzle game can be easy, but its an odd enough genre that enough people are turned off by the idea of something like Tetris)

light gun games. Pretty much relies on one-button, and the learning curve is nothing more than "point at something you want dead and pull trigger."

Platformers- run, jump, don't fall into pits/get hit/etc.
Light Gun- "Point and shoot"
Puzzlers- addicting, brainbending


I'd say for a first-timer, avoid RPGs (too much management, grinding can be a pain), First-person shooters (especially online multiplayer), RTS games, and fighting games.

I picked classic point-and-click adventure games. I notice that a lot of new gamers get attracted to simple puzzle games like tetris and bejeweled. However a lot of them get stuck with those kinds of those games and never move on to anything more complicated (And hopefully better). So I figure that classic adventure games would be a good place to start because it has simplistic gameplay (Just point and click) but complexity in terms of the puzzles you have to solve and the story (Except for comedy focused ones).

EDIT: As a side note I think it's best for new gamers to avoid stealth games and shooters as I find those are the easiest to get discouraged in from not doing badly. Also stealth games can easily get confusing even for veteran gamers because they are such a unique genre. Everything from the controls to the array of options available to the player can get a little overwhelming for some.

Eroge!

I think its puzzles by an easy win

Looking at all the iphone and ipad games, who the users are none gamers on the opposite of ds and psp users, who are dedicated videogamers

the most selling games are always simple puzzle games,
look at:
-angry birds
-cut the rope
-scrabble
-trucks and skills
-cove orange
-solitaire

most are puzzle games, and I took this off Apple's own top charts

same thing happened with Tetris on the gameboy
and bejeweled , zuma, a few years ago when flash gaming was on the rise
lets not forget Peggle too