When I mean "get into gaming", I mean become somewhat of a Hardcore Gamer.
Myself personally, I became a "Hardcore" gamer rather late in life, at least in video game terms. My first video game system was a Atari 2600 at the age of 7 years old. Me and my brother played the 2600 for several years, but I was not anything close to being a "hardcore" gamer. Then my dad bought us a Atari 800XL computer. I played around with that a little bit, but then I basically stopped playing video games for quite some time. I didn't start playing them again until my Mom got me a NES system for Xmas. At that time I was a teenager, and not reallly into games that much either. After awhile, me and my high school buddies started playing sports games on the NES, and we would have little tournaments and leagues and stuff, but all we played were sports games. I had no interest in any action type games at that time. So I still wasn't hardcore in any way. More of a casual sports gamer.
Then in 1989, at the age of 19, I bought a TurboGrafx-16. The main reason I got one, was because I saw pictures of the TV Sports games in a GamePro and the graphics looked really good at the time. I bought that system hoping to play more advanced sports games. Me and my buddies played World Class Baseball quite a bit, but again, I was still more of a casual gamer.
In 1990, at the age of 20 is when I really started to become more "hardcore" into gaming. The TG-16 really didn't have much in the way of sports games, and to justify all the money I spent on it, I started buying a bunch of non sports games. Games like Legendary Axe and Splatterhouse and Bonk's Adventure. It was at this point that I started to become more hardcore.
Not long after that, I got into trouble with the law, and I had to go live with my Brother in L.A. I had a TG-16 and a Genesis at the time. My brother worked 16 hour days, and was always gone, so there was nothing to do for me, but to play games. So I got really, really into the Genesis and TG-16 and video game magazines. I even found a place in Woodland Hills that rented TG-16 and Genesis games. Not only that, but they had the TG-16 to PC Engine converters. You could rent the converters and a PC Engine game. So I started doing that. I also read every single video game magazine that hit newstands. What a dumbass, because I was paying the full newstand price for all of them too!!!
Basically at age 21, when I bought the SNES the day it came out, that is when I truly became a hardcore gamer. From that point on, I've bought every single game console on the day of release (except 3DO, got that about 4 months after release).
Anyways, the bottom line is that I became a hardcore gamer at the age of 21, which is kinda late to become a hardcore gamer. I would imagine that most people get really into gaming when they are much younger. I was kinda late to the party.
Now I'm 34, and still hardcore, and I don't imagine that I will ever tire of this hobby.