Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of getting an original NES controller bounced off of their head can attest to the fact that playing with someone simply isn't that great. :P

My college roommate and I were game nuts. He stopped, I didn't.

I don't really have any friends - well, one, in another state - so I always play alone. I wish my gf was into gaming but she's not. It'd be kinda nice to have someone around to play and discuss with.

Maybe if I can get my hands on that new "mini" SNES I might be able to pull my gf in.

Haha, yes, I do that, too. The last time I played System Shock I had an intense talk with myself about how to escape the radiated floors one has to go through with the code you have to memorize to escape the dangerous situation.
And before that about those annoying telecinetic skilled monkeys bothering you here and there. I think it does indeed depend on which games you want to play, strategy games and adventures are predestinated to be played together because of the ideas you can collect together.
I often found myself clueless while my gaming partner had ideas to progress further. The last game I played together with my two cousins was Amnesia, and together we helped each other out of hopeless situations and we weren't as frightened as we would have been when playing alone. I play older games because of, well the nostalgia.
It were the best times in my life when I played Lemmings before I went to bed and my father showed me games like Jill of the Jungle and Populous and when I got older he only insulted me when I played computer games and said, why can't you just read books instead of being involved with childish things like that, so it were the good old times for me, when there was still harmony all around.
But it's not only the nostalgia it's also because I like the games that were made back in the days, and when games are made to look or feel 'retro' it doesn't succeed most of the times.

I have still my other cousin to play games with, he is much younger than me, 12 years, and I was the first one to show him computergames, and of course I began with the games I loved when i was younger, Black and White 1, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, The Sims 2 and he loved it , too, I was very happy about that.
The last weekend I played 'No one lives forever' with him and he was more excited about it than I thought.
Those are the moments I feel the joy of the days long gone...maybe it's strange but it's a great part of what happiness means for me.
But unfortunately I can't rely on my cousin to play games with me since he is much younger than me and he will find other friends to spend his time with. (And I think I'm starting to lose him to mobile phone games >.< , I knew sooner or later it would happen)

But it seems like it's not only me who had more opportunities to play games together when at a younger age.
In the end, there will always be people wo stop gaming or reduce it on a level on which you can't have fun with it anymore.

I have sometimes sat down with a friend (a few different ones) and played something together as in solving and figuring out things together and coming up with strategies together. It can be quite nice.

You've got a working copy of 'No One Lives Forever'? Can I come over to your house and play? ;)

In my school days I used to play games together with mates at their houses (mostly adventure games and RPGs), and when I played at home, sometimes one of my siblings would join me and watch, or I would let them play and watch myself. It was fun. Nowadays I mostly play on my own, but I don't mind that. I'm a thorough completionist and a slow reader and I like to explore and marvel at the view, so I'm more comfortable with playing single player games on my own, taking my time without having to make allowances or feeling rushed. I still know a few guys my age who play games but often they're interested in different titles than me. I'm not into MMOs, MOBAs, PvP, Free to Play etc., so few multiplayer games appeal to me. I do like playing couch co-op games with my siblings or friends from time to time, but there aren't that many occasions to do it and not a lot of really good couch co-op games, unfortunately.

Play online multiplayer games OP, don't let the hate cloud you judgement. You could go to any community and try to make some friends before going in directly into the game.

Or you can try streaming your gaming sessions and/or make a YT channel where you discuss your games. Not something to be fancy or successful, just something that you can share your views, passion or thoughts with a few people that might have the same interests.

In case none of that doesn't work, try listening to podcasts while playing.

Man, my dad was the same. The only reason i got into gaming in the first place is because I wanted to be closer to him because he used to spend a lot of time playing games. Into the years he kind of stopped while I kept the passion for it and he started being a really smug prick about how I shouldn't game in my age and all that crap, as if he never were into it in the first place way later than I was.

I'll never understand what that was all about.

I talk to other people in my mind.

Probably a worse sign.

I play them with all of my friends. :D

I play card and board games against myself. Only problem is, I always lose. I'm pretty sure the other guy is cheating.

I used to play Quake 3 with room mates back when it was still big in the early 2000s on LAN and in online multiplayer.
Nowadays, I just play by myself. I don't have an interest in multiplayer anymore (my internet sucks bad anyway), and I'm not near as sociable as I was when I was younger.

Myself, mostly multi or the odd pbem game.
Used to do the family thing of sit around a play together, miss that, got less and less as we all got older.
Our tastes split us too, plus other crap...
Maybez your friends need a incentive, cook a meal/take away, beer etc...i don't know.

I kinda stopped caring about offline gaming with friends though its more my fault for getting more distant from the friends around me... well some of them. Was part of a boardgame review site and when I got a board game I always end up playing by myself and walking around the table like mad. But hey as people say "I always talk with myself if I need a professional advice."

For video games MMORPGs are a great way to get to know new people. Though games with online co-op and chat can do the same too.

Nowadays I usually play games using the steam overlay to chat with friends else it kinda gets dull or I end up watching cartoons while playing a grindy game.

It's not considered taboo to marry your cousin. It's Biblically accepted. Go forth and be lonely no more!

In the 90s when a friend or friends would get together for some gaming before multiplayer was really a thing we'd often do this. I remember a friend and I playing the Alien TC conversion of DOOM with one of us controlling and the other just watching and offering suggestions then swapping seats every now and then for example. Or one person testing out a new game while a friend watched and maybe offered ideas, possibly seat shifting as well.

Once multi-player really became a thing though we may have occasionally did the above from time to time just visiting or something but when we were doing actual gaming it was usually in-person with 2 or more computers doing a LAN party or a null-modem party before that (or even a PLIP party for that matter <grin>). Over time we did multiplayer DOOM, DOOM2, Quake, Warcraft II, Starcraft, Half-life and its expansions, leading into the 2000s with Tom Clancy games like Rogue Spear and Ghost Recon, then Warcraft III. Probably missing a bunch of games in the list but those are the most memorable that we spent the most time with.

In all that time and for the most part since then, multi-person gaming was mostly a multi-player experience either in a LAN scenario or online. The only time I remember having multiple people experiencing a single game on one computer together was firing up a game to demo it to a friend visiting or similar which happens from time to time although not really that often. Oddly enough a buddy was over here last night to do some multi-player but for various mostly technical reasons (and attitude problems) the multi-player never really happened but I ended up playing Murdered: Soul Suspect just to show him the game as he had never heard of it and we ended up with me playing and him finding it quite interesting and more or less working together to figure out clues or what to do next.

Kind of an anomaly to play in that manner these days though for me anyway, not so much because of any changes in gaming itself, but more due to people getting older, life commitments, families etc. and generally people not having much time at all to get together for a so called "man cave" night so to speak. I went for probably 8 years without hosting nor attending any LAN parties for the most part but this year I decided to try to spark some interest in some good old-fashioned LAN partying with some friends and we've managed to get together about once a month on average for the last 3 months and have a good 5-7 hours of old-school LAN gaming albeit with modern games (namely Starcraft II). Everybody is enjoying doing so, so it seems we're going to keep doing that and I might start hosting every 2 weeks as it has been fun just like in the 90s and early 00s before Internet gaming kind of took over and LAN partying died off.

So for me at least, having a friend or friends gathered around one computer playing a game could be fun for everyone depending on the experience, but it is mostly a rarity these days because it's notoriously difficult to pry people out of their perpetual daily wife/kids/career/life routines that suck their brains and life essence out of them leaving no room for personal fun time to spend with friends. As such approximately 99.37941% of my gaming these days is single-player, with an occasional multiplayer game of The Witcher Adventure Game online, maybe a small bit of Starcraft II online against randoms and similar but with no real social interaction on those types of games other than minor banter in the chat window.

Gaming can be a very highly social thing in my experience, but only if other people are actually available and able to be pried out of their crazy brain-sucking lifestyles long enough to socialize under the context of gaming for a while be it multi-player or sharing a game with one person at the controls. That is if they're not too busy falling off cliffs or through open man holes chasing Pokemon. :)