Ages ~2-5
Naturally as a child, anything goes and I played whatever I could get my hands on. I had a unique upbringing with my mom and I living with my grandparents for some of my earliest years as a kid, so I got spoiled somewhat (was able to rent a game almost constantly it seemed like). The NES rotation was: SMB1, Duck Hunt, Golf, Mega Man (2 and 4 seemed available the most early on), Blaster Master, TMNT III, Battletoads, Robocop 3 (one of those bad games we owned), Kirby's Adventure, Adventures of Lolo (yeah somehow played this really young), SMB2 (elusive rare rental), SMB3, eventually got around to all the Mega Man's but I don't think I ever played MM1 as a kid. Briefly exposed to Zelda, Zelda II, and Metroid, then later on discovered the Genesis at some family events, Sonic the Hedgehog 1, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Ghosts n' Goblins, etc. Growing up, I never owned any of the Mega Man games, until MM6 (years later after I was 5 I think). Played that one a lot and seemed to rent Metroid more often here, but always got stuck in Norfair as a kid. I got to the end of Blaster Master once or twice after all this time, but never beat it as a kid.
Mega Man, Metroid, and Blaster Master cemented my love for all things sci-fi and rock/metal, still to this day.
Ages ~5-9
Got an SNES. Most of the kids I knew growing up owned the Genesis instead and still some NES's here and there. I remember my neighbors having some of the best, like Shinobi 3 and Streets of Rage 2-3. Still some of the most nostalgic games ever for me. Was also exposed to DOOM when I was 5 in 1993, only saw one of my neighbors play it ONCE but it left and immortal impression on me. I wonder if we were even allowed to play it? It was on some hilarious roller ball mouse and my friend never let me play, so I just watched. But it was awesome.
The SNES lineup for me was quite strange, lots of random rentals or stuff my dad and some of his friends enjoyed. I had Super Mario World of course and some other Nintendo exclusives, but the rentals were like, Super Turrican, Earthworm Jim, Clayfighter, Lemmings, The Lost Vikings, ActRaiser (beat it when I was 5 one weekend, my dad had to read all the text. Extra fascinating since my dad was super religious at the time and this game is very weird with God/creation material haha), Super Ghouls n' Ghosts (also kind of interesting because it looks so "demonic" and evil, but I owned it). Got Donkey Kong Country for Christmas 1994 or something.
Ages ~10-17
N64 multiplayer madness with the shooters, wrestling games, racers, etc. Ocarina of Time was one of the first games I bought with some big saved up allowance over a whole summer. Don't forget carts were expensive too! Still got that gold cart and box CIB!
PSX discovery. One of my best friends from elementary school showed me the holy trifecta, Metal Gear Solid 1, Final Fantasy 7, and Resident Evil 2. Still took a few years to have a PSX on my own. In fact I did most of my PSX gaming when the PS2 dropped, however that was the "family system". So I didn't always have access to it. I remember trading my N64 to a friend for his PSX for awhile.
In the midst of discovering the PSX and slowly stepping further out from Nintendo, I discovered emulation and the internet in like 5th grade or something. So somewhere in this time frame is when I devoured JRPG's across the SNES and PSX. Chrono Cross was my first PSX game I bought, then I quickly built up a strong collection I still have today. Lot of black labels and funny stuff, like trading a second hand skateboard for someones black label FF7. No regrets here... prior to this though, Super Mario RPG was the first RPG I ever played, beat, and loved. Interesting to see some others have some strong history with this one too!
Wasn't technically allowed to play M rated games, but that was my dad's rule. Mom didn't care and it was so easy to hide MGS or Quake 2 in plain sight on the shelves since the side labels didn't have a rating.
Ages ~18-25
Somewhere in here is what I'd call the Bro Years. I was doing three games out a month with Gamefly and played a lot of AAA games, fell into a lot of the hype and whatnot. The internet and XBL were becoming a bigger deal, etc. I've said it a lot across the board, but nowadays I regret like 80% of my 360 collection. "Kept" tons of games from Gamefly that I'll never play again. Some genres I liked through these years I don't think I'd tolerate much nowadays, or even have interest in.
But I did get a laptop for graduation I think, it was finally the best PC I had ever owned growing up until this point. So powerful it played Half-Life 2! I had already played and been blown away by Deus Ex on the PS2 and just knew a lot about some PC games from magazines and such from all the media I absorbed, so I finally started digging more into PC gaming around here and caught up on some classics.
Ages ~25+
Still a lot of evolution going on that's hard to nail down. For the last few years though I'd say my tastes kind of align with where I was back in the PS2 gen. I vastly prefer Japanese developed games, they do character action games better. I like the now rare "linear" games and shorter experiences. The retro anime flavor that gaming had in the 90's is definitely gone thesedays for the most part, but I still find myself gravitating more towards the "anime" in general sometimes, than other stuff. Also, the indie boom is something I'm extremely picky about with my choices, but there's plenty of games coming from small garage based developers nowadays that interest me far more than AAA stuff.
Throughout all my years of gaming, I think the FPS genre has been one of the strongest and most consistent. However quality single player experiences are a rarity nowadays, but there's plenty of modern classics that have stacked up by now that I can easily see myself revisiting a lot throughout the years. I even just finally got around to Quake 1 in 2016, so I'm still doing some catch up here and there. It's been a blast.
This reads like more of another history breakdown than my "motivations".
I'll just say that my high school gaming years were different and weird in retrospect, almost in a regretful manner like I "lost my way" haha. I am much happier with the state of gaming and my own personal tastes and journey with it nowadays again, it's awesome like when I was a kid.