I dont remember a time before them. Some of the earliest ones I remember were a paint by numbers game that told the story of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the Animaniacs and Batman the Animated Series PC games, some game where you run a pet shop (I can remember the theme song from that still) and the Humongous Entertainment classics of Freddie Fish, Pajama Sam and Putt-Putt.
I also used games to learn to read. Shoutout to Zoophonics.