My neighbor in 1983 introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons. I was hooked. I was only 11 years old. I would go to my local game store called Aero Hobbies. I would go in and just browse all the different games. I tried everything. Now there are divisions within gaming. People play RPG's, board games, collectable card games and miniature games. Back in the 80’s if you were a gamer that included all of these plus video games. CCG games didn’t really happen till 1993 when Magic came out.
Then in Junior high when a friend of mine wanted me to join his new campaign of a new game called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I couldn’t believe how much cooler this was than D&D. The next year a store called Games Workshop opened in Santa Monica. I went in and they had glass cases filled with painted space marine armies. I bought a Rogue Trader box of 30 marines for 30 bucks. I built and painted my own army in a custom black and orange scheme. I brought it back to the store where they had tables for people to play. The guys in the store laughed at me for not having painted an army in a traditional scheme. I never played a game with that army.
In college I was still playing a lot of games. Then Magic the gathering came out. Everyone in the gaming hobby was hooked. It was hard to avoid it. I played all throughout college.
Then after college I came back home and my friend got me a job testing video games for a company called NovaLogic. I built up some experience. Then I switched to Treyarch where I became producer for Tony Hawk 2x. It was a launch title for the original Xbox in 2001. Making video games was a great place to be a gamer. Many people would play traditional games after work. So I almost always had a game group.
In 2001 I came to Thailand for a 2 week vacation. My friend was going to Koh Samui. He had friends who lived there and told me I should join them. I came and had an amazing time. I went back to work and the new game I was working on had a bunch of production issues. Then in 2003, I got cut from my job and decided to have an extended break in Thailand. I stayed for 3 months. I loved it. That was it. I moved to Thailand in October 2003.
Everything was great. I made lots of friends. I met my wife but I really never met any gamers. There were no game shops in Bangkok at that time. Then I met a guy at a language class in 2015. We were chatting and I asked him what he did for fun. He said he played games. I asked him “what type?” He said “I wouldn’t know.” I said “Try me.” A game called warhammer. I was all in. Apparently a new store opened in 2012 in Bangkok.
This got me back into gaming. I got into miniatures and started watching all the hobby content creators on youtube. Now this is my full time hobby and I love it. I recently moved to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. This has a much bigger gaming scene than Samui. I have my own gaming space and I get to paint all the time.