I can't believe that you had the Atari gaming system and grew up with that. Dude that basically makes you a legend :-)
It all started for me in early-mid nineties with the pac-man on windows computers. Then from there came Mario and then obviously I progressed to street fighter, tekken and such. Those are some of my most intense memories.
Admittedly, I did not go on to become a gaming nerd. I frankly wasn't much good at them. My last seriously played games were NFS and Delta Force and after that my gaming 'career' kind of had a major slump from which I never recovered.
Even then I saw my close friends go on to become serious players with thousands of dollars worth investment in gaming equipment. Another factor for my gaming slump was that we never had a lot of spare money to buy some decent gaming equipment. Every time the topic came up, it was passed over for more urgent necessaries.
Nevertheless I stayed in touch with my gamer buddies and got to enjoy many a great sessions with them. I am proud to say that some of those guys did really well. No longer are the gamers called the nerds from the basements. They are the heroes who have conquered virtual worlds and won millions of dollars for their efforts in the real world. Gaming industry has come a long way and it is set to go for even greater heights from here.