Your 'hypothesis' is tested under completely unscientific circumstances.

1) You are conducting your research on a gaming enthusiast website

2) You have not defined 'gamer' -- is it any game, or videogames in particular?

3) Lifelong? Do you know for a fact the rest of your life?

4) Although there ought to be certain correlation between previous exposure to videogames, it is unlikely that you assign a primary role to video games, as video games per se: I can also claim that people become lifelong mobile phone users if exposed early and the available data would likely confirm my hypothesis -- but the hypothesis itself is meaningless because it simply describes the relatively recent of mobile phone useage.

First time I played a video game was when I was about 6 or 7 seven but didn't become a serious gamer until my late teens. Overall I think your hypothesis is pretty good.

This thread is done backwarrds. What you will find is that people who are hardcore gamers and post on message boards tended to also start gaming when they were young.

If you wanted to find out if young people stick to gaming if introduced at a young age, you'd need to survey everyone who started gaming when they were young, and then find out if they still game today.

I started with a NES when I was 3.

I was about 3. The year was 1982 and the game was E.T.

I'm 15 now and I was 7,first game was Dino crisis 2, I beat it 11 times.

Yes, this is entirely correct. This is pretty much the most unscientific thread ever. 

That being said, it's still pretty interesting to see what got people into gaming (it was a little different than I thought) and to see generally how the VG Chartz community skews. Which it obviously does.

Kind of a weird question......

I guess I will say I started at age 3 playing Coleco. Donkey Kong Jr and Popeye!

0-4 is when I started playing games. I played on the atari and NES. However many factors could easily make me quit gaming. I mostly play videogames because I have nothing better to do.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly.

It's definitely no later than age 8, since that's when I got my SNES in 1991. But I remember playing games with my older brother on NES long before that. So I'll say 3-5. I recall playing Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, and also Bubble Bobble.

But I agree that people who start video games early will probably never let them go. I know I won't.