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[Guilty_AI]

This is something i've been pondering about while laying down in a sunday night. Theres a certain type of feeling i can't help but think missing in modern gaming.

Picture this: You're on your room. It's night, with only a dim yellow light illuminating the ambient. You pick up a case with a random game and go put it into your Playstation Saturn 64. You turn on the console, the splash screen appears acompanied by a short tune. And then you're thrown into a complately new world, separated from everything and everyone, maybe except a few noises from the streets outside or from the house inhabitants beyond your closed door. That game feels unique and precious, a brand new one from a dozen others in your collection. You remember how excited you were when you went to the store to buy it a few days ago, and how you probably wont be getting anything else for the foreseeable future, nor want to for all that you can think of right now is that game.

This probably didn't happen to you exactly like that, but you get the idea. Nowadays, regardless of where you play your games, the device likely is deeply connected to the internet. When you start your game, even a single player one with no mandatory internet connection, you can still receive messages from friends, get achievement notifications, or update prompts, constantly reminding you that that world is merely a part of a larger ecosystem. As you play, you may feel tempted to check new messages on your phone, or look up some guide online when you're feeling stuck. Heck, the game may even have some soft implementations of multiplayer, like scattered messages or scores. Because that experience isn't yours, its something millions of people also felt.

Then, when you exit the game, just a few button clicks away is a sea of completely new experiences, all easily and quickly accessible, at the touch of your fingertips, for a few bucks you probably wont miss. It should feel like a dream come true, but simultaneously also makes the world you were just in feel like less, more trivial, just another one in an ocean filled with vaguely similar ones.

To be clear, i dont dislike gaming today, nor do i doom and gloom about modern games, but i cant help but feel the way i engage with games shifted dramatically. I wonder if there is any way to re-enact that old feeling. Maybe wait for a holiday when i can be relatively free of worry, prepare some hot milk at night, turn off the internet in the entire house, then go play?

I'm not drunk.

 

[PlayStaytion]

Well, that triggers doing something besides playing videogames, don't call it a day when you feel this way.

 

[Danjin44]

This probably didn't happen to you exactly like that, but you get the idea. Nowadays, regardless of where you play your games, the device likely is deeply connected to the internet. When you start your game, even a single player one with no mandatory internet connection, you can still receive messages from friends, get achievement notifications, or update prompts, constantly reminding you that that world is merely a part of a larger ecosystem. As you play, you may feel tempted to check new messages on your phone, or look up some guide online when you're feeling stuck. Heck, the game may even have some soft implementations of multiplayer, like scattered messages or scores. Because that experience isn't yours, its something millions of people also felt.

You can easily just turn off these notifications. also thats life and in life nothing is consistent, things will change and it will continue to change.....you age and start to see things differently compare when you were just a kid.

 

[Guilty_AI]

You can easily just turn off these notifications. also thats life and in life nothing is consistent, things will change and it will continue to change.....you age and start to see things differently compare when you were just a kid.

I do already, though it doesn't completely erase the feeling i'm conected to something. Maybe the mere fact i know its all there is enough to break the illusion.

I used to think it was just an age thing too but then suddenly i'd find myself feeling just as immersed for reasons beyond my comprehension, sometimes with games that weren't even that good and i didn't bother completing.

 

[Danjin44]

I do already, though it doesn't completely erase the feeling i'm conected to something. Maybe the mere fact i know its all there is enough to break the illusion.

That stuff personally doesn't bother me, once I start playing I don't even think about it and just be immersed in my game.

 

[Guilty_AI]

That stuff personally doesn't bother me, once I start playing I don't even think about it and just be immersed in my game.

I feel like we arent talking about the same type of immersion here. Yes, i can still enjoy a game with all of that, but i feel like theres a certain feeling of isolation you could get that has been lost to time.

 

[Danjin44]

I feel like we arent talking about the same type of immersion here. Yes, i can still enjoy a game with all of that, but i feel like theres a certain feeling of isolation you could get that has been lost to time.

Of course but for me that has less to do internet/online more to do with the fact I no longer cant ignore real life outside of gaming......I mean when I played games back when I was a kid I didn't care whats happening around me and just fully focus on playing the game in front of me, but as an adult I cant no longer do that because life happens that I cant ignore.

 

[IAmRei]

I think i understand with what You said.
disable notifications, going offline, place down Your phone?
playing games that doesn't need to be online at all?

I don't know about You, but my PC notification is all down all the time.
If You are using console, I think You can put notifications down as well.

 

[ReasonBeing]

I go periods of time where i'll have similar feelings. During these periods i'll find myself picking up the guitar again, or i'll dive into VR. VR can be a very good palette cleanser. Partly because the platform is still figuring itself out, you'll find a lot of unique experiences.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Of course but for me that has less to do internet/online more to do with the fact I no longer cant ignore real life outside of gaming......I mean when I played games back when I was a kid I didn't care whats happening around me and just fully focus on playing the game in front of me, but as an adult I cant no longer do that because life happens that I cant ignore.

I'd say thats less due to being a kid and more due to the changes of our era. Its probably hard to understand as we've only been adults in this time, but something like 50 years ago, or even more recently like 20-30 years ago, even as adults it was quite easy to "tune-out" the world. Once you got home from the job, whatever it is that happened or is currently happening might as well not exist until you go back there the next day/week.

Today? Simple messages or emails, the mere fact you know they're there and that you're expected to know they're there, be from work, family, friends, whatever else, create this feeling that its impossible to get away from the world. This isnt because we're not kids anymore, this is a reality brought about by our times.

 

[Danjin44]

I'd say thats less due to being a kid and more due to the changes of our era. Its probably hard to understand as we've only been adults in this time, but something like 50 years ago, or even more recently like 20-30 years ago, even as adults it was quite easy to "tune-out" the world. Once you got home from the job, whatever it is that happened or is currently happening might as well not exist until you go back there the next day/week.

Today? Simple messages or emails, the mere fact you know they're there and that you're expected to know they're there, be from work, family, friends, whatever else, create this feeling that its impossible to get away from the world. This isnt because we're not kids anymore, this is a reality brought about by our times.

Maybe, like I said before nothing in this world is consistent, things will change.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Maybe, like I said before nothing in this world is consistent, things will change.

But maybe there are still ways to get away temporarily, is what i'm saying. Perhaps its entirely a mental thing, but even if it is, doesn't mean you cant manipulate your enviroment to better achieve it

 

[Danjin44]

But maybe there are still ways to get away temporarily, is what i'm saying. Perhaps its entirely a mental thing, but even if it is, doesn't mean you cant manipulate your enviroment to better achieve it

Sure for me using head-set can get in to in to the zone, helps me tone out everthing.

 

[Gandih42]

I don't think the loss of that feeling is fully explained by the pervasiveness of modern IT (e.g. notifications from our phones and consoles). Regardless of when you grow up your life will increasingly be shaped by responsibility, whether to your job, family, friends, home etc., and I think that inevitably encroaches on your capacity to engage with completely carefree-ness with videogames, as we may have done as children. I would also argue that things like commodification of our free time and normalisation of game genres, mechanics, etc. has played a role in taking away some of that magic we are nostalgic for.

That being said, I completely agree that the ever-present online infrastructure of our lives also plays a role in hindering our ability to completely engage (and not just with videogames), I think increasingly (at least for myself) it is necessary to actively create the conditions to be fully engaged. For instance by turning off our online systems where possible as others suggest.

For me, one thing that really helps rekindle deeper engagement with games is indulging in their more tactile and physical elements. Having physical copies gets me invested games in a different way than simply having them available on the Playstation dashboard, especially if I can get them with a Steelbook with cool artwork. Having the soundtrack and getting more intimate with the music and sounds of the game also helps. And by that I'm not trying to neglect the incredible convenience digital storefronts, just that sometimes - for games that are special to me - I want to go the extra mile and make the time with the game memorable and meaningful.

 

[kubricks]

It was the time before internet/social media and we were young.
We can turn off all the connection, but we cannot turn back time.

 

[yamaci17]

i never use steam overlay (disabled globally, also helps with performance anyways)
always put myself in offline mode if i'm about to play a game

that's why i like xbox PC app anyways, it just launches game and that's it, you can just close it then. sure it has social features too but no one on PC uses them so yeah

on top of that, i don't look up guides unless it really drives me mad (which is super rare)

 

[N30RYU]

Buy a VR headset.

I'm playing Hitman on PSVR2... and it's awesome

 

[March Climber]

I still get this feeling even without physical, especially when clicking download for a midnight launch, and seeing this intro usually has a 100% success rate of giving me that feeling:



Because then I know I'll probably be up very late.

 

[Dacvak]

This is something i've been pondering about while laying down in a sunday night. Theres a certain type of feeling i can't help but think missing in modern gaming.

Picture this: You're on your room. It's night, with only a dim yellow light illuminating the ambient. You pick up a case with a random game and go put it into your Playstation Saturn 64. You turn on the console, the splash screen appears acompanied by a short tune. And then you're thrown into a complately new world, separated from everything and everyone, maybe except a few noises from the streets outside or from the house inhabitants beyond your closed door. That game feels unique and precious, a brand new one from a dozen others in your collection. You remember how excited you were when you went to the store to buy it a few days ago, and how you probably wont be getting anything else for the foreseeable future, nor want to for all that you can think of right now is that game.

This probably didn't happen to you exactly like that, but you get the idea. Nowadays, regardless of where you play your games, the device likely is deeply connected to the internet. When you start your game, even a single player one with no mandatory internet connection, you can still receive messages from friends, get achievement notifications, or update prompts, constantly reminding you that that world is merely a part of a larger ecosystem. As you play, you may feel tempted to check new messages on your phone, or look up some guide online when you're feeling stuck. Heck, the game may even have some soft implementations of multiplayer, like scattered messages or scores. Because that experience isn't yours, its something millions of people also felt.

Then, when you exit the game, just a few button clicks away is a sea of completely new experiences, all easily and quickly accessible, at the touch of your fingertips, for a few bucks you probably wont miss. It should feel like a dream come true, but simultaneously also makes the world you were just in feel like less, more trivial, just another one in an ocean filled with vaguely similar ones.

To be clear, i dont dislike gaming today, nor do i doom and gloom about modern games, but i cant help but feel the way i engage with games shifted dramatically. I wonder if there is any way to re-enact that old feeling. Maybe wait for a holiday when i can be relatively free of worry, prepare some hot milk at night, turn off the internet in the entire house, then go play?

I'm not drunk.

Just to push back on this a bit, I've recently been using game chat on the Switch 2 with my cereal friend almost everyday for the last few weeks. It's been really casual, and we're both playing our own games, but able to see what each other are playing.

That experience has felt more like "hangin with some buds" than any other online platform I've used probably ever. I think it's how low-friction and seamless it is. No setting anything up, no headsets, no discord or phone calls… just hop in a send a quick invite.

Technologically, I think Nintendo is still way behind (the video sharing is like 10fps), but it manages to replicate the "sitting on a couch with the bros" feel better than even Xbox Live did.

 

[Gandih42]

Just to push back on this a bit, I've recently been using game chat on the Switch 2 with my cereal friend almost everyday for the last few weeks. It's been really casual, and we're both playing our own games, but able to see what each other are playing.

That experience has felt more like "hangin with some buds" than any other online platform I've used probably ever. I think it's how low-friction and seamless it is. No setting anything up, no headsets, no discord or phone calls… just hop in a send a quick invite.

Technologically, I think Nintendo is still way behind (the video sharing is like 10fps), but it manages to replicate the "sitting on a couch with the bros" feel better than even Xbox Live did.

Love this, and I think it's a really good reminder that new online systems aren't inherently good or bad simply because they are MORE or LESS online.

Its a good example of why online co-op/survival/building games thrive on the intense popularity within their niches, these games facilitates hanging out with friends through gaming. What you describe sounds like achieving something similar, but extended to encompass single player games.

 

[DirtInUrEye]

Elden Ring provides this experience. I play it completely offline, after everyone has gone to bed. I won't check my phone for many hours, it's a world one can disappear into.

 

[cireza]

Digital games certainly aren't helping with the fact of taking the disc out of the case to putting it into your console.

I personally decided long ago that I would not give up on this experience, so my gaming room is pretty much still reminiscent of the experience I had in my 90s. It is warm, welcoming, there is a CRT and a (fucking) LCD, consoles and games put on shelves. Also an ambient light I can turn to whatever color I want, as well as the level of brightness I want. Also used as a room to watch movies. Nothing fancy honestly.

Play some old consoles and games like the good old time. Include more of it. I am certainly 50% modern / 50% retro consoles. And I play a ton of old games collections on modern consoles.

If this is the kind of experience you crave, just do it.

 

[nush]

Games have changed. What were console and arcade experiences have basically morphed into PC gaming. You can't boot up a console game and play for 10 minutes before going off and doing something else.

 

[Wildebeest]

I hate achievements and achievement pop ups. Microtransactions. Games so hand holdy and straightforward that you might as well have someone standing over your shoulder watching you, telling you that you are doing everything wrong, and to do this, do that.

 

[KimDongHwan]

Maybe it started happening when they introduced OS to consoles, it would be nice to have a boot only console but that wouldn't work with a digital library :/

 

[TheSHEEEP]

I can relate.
I wouldn't go back to the old days, as gaming is a lot more convenient now and that is definitely great.

However, with the bigger "struggle" involved back then, finally launching the game felt a lot more special.

Of course, there were also "only" dozens of games at any store, making each of them feel more special than today where you go to Steam and have... millions?

 

[hemo memo]

Yeah that's modern life. I used to laugh at people who skipped cutscenes in games as cutscenes felt like a reward, an essential part of the story. Why would you skip that? But now I catch myself doing it then immediately getting lost about what's going on and going online to read the story. And it's not just videogames. Last weekend I invited my relatives over to watch a local football/soccer match and half the time they were on their phones scrolling through X, reading people's reactions to the same exact match we were watching. Like what the hell?

 

[Sintoid]

I have no online friends and I play mostly single player games

It's a good life...

 

[crackajack]

I would think the biggest "problem" many gamers face today is the overabundance of games in their library. As a kid you played one game at the time. Even if it was kinda mid you tried to enjoy it and get most out of it. You also bridged the time until your own next game borrowing someone else's game. One or two games per month maybe, with more freetime, only having school as your "distraction" and it was enough, and fun. Nowadays you are drowned in free Epic games, freebies from gog, steam, Ubi, EA... vast Plus or GP catalogues, or just being able to afford more than enough games at any time, turning it into almost work and an obligation to get through it all. Experiencing and fully focusing on one game is hardly possible, because there is the feeling that you have to finish the current one, to get to the next that's also kinda interesting.

 

[hemo memo]

I would think the biggest "problem" many gamers face today is the overabundance of games in their library. As a kid you played one game at the time. Even if it was kinda mid you tried to enjoy it and get most out of it. You also bridged the time until your own next game borrowing someone else's game. One or two games per month maybe, with more freetime, only having school as your "distraction" and it was enough, and fun. Nowadays you are drowned in free Epic games, freebies from gog, steam, Ubi, EA... vast Plus or GP catalogues, or just being able to afford more than enough games at any time, turning it into almost work and an obligation to get through it all. Experiencing and fully focusing on one game is hardly possible, because there is the feeling that you have to finish the current one, to get to the next that's also kinda interesting.

Being stuck on a single game for too long is really sad. I genuinely feel sorry for people who only play FIFA, CoD, or Fortnite. It's like having the whole world at your feet but choosing to visit just the same 3 places over and over.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Digital games certainly aren't helping with the fact of taking the disc out of the case to putting it into your console.

I personally decided long ago that I would not give up on this experience, so my gaming room is pretty much still reminiscent of the experience I had in my 90s. It is warm, welcoming, there is a CRT and a (fucking) LCD, consoles and games put on shelves. Also an ambient light I can turn to whatever color I want, as well as the level of brightness I want. Also used as a room to watch movies. Nothing fancy honestly.

Play some old consoles and games like the good old time. Include more of it. I am certainly 50% modern / 50% retro consoles. And I play a ton of old games collections on modern consoles.

If this is the kind of experience you crave, just do it.

I dont think it needs to go that far (for me at least). One thing i always felt like doing though is downloading the entirety of my digital library onto an external HDD and when its time for gaming i turn off the internet and pick something from it. I've always been careful of only buying games that dont enforce internet connection (be it due to drm or it being always online) so doing that would be viable, however it'd require quite a bit of work and time so i need to gather up courage to do it.

 

[struggler_guts]

Try giving less of a fuck lol

Work doesn't exist when I'm not there and responses to people can wait til I'm done.

I've been locked into silent hill and been screwing my sleep over cause I lose track of time haha

 

[FukuDaruma]

I remember waiting 20 to 50 minutes to load games on cassette that were mostly crap and couldn't compare in the least to the arcades.

Now I fire up my stereoscopic 3D laser projector on a 120" screen and play instantly dozens of amazing games of all possible genres, which makes my jaw drop on a daily basis.

Fuck nostalgia. I don't miss the 8 bit/16bit eras or even the 90's fps birth with all its goodness. The only thing you are missing is your passion at that age, and you can work on that.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I remember waiting 20 to 50 minutes to load games on cassette that were mostly crap and couldn't compare in the least to the arcades.

Now I fire up my stereoscopic 3D laser projector on a 120" screen and play instantly dozens of amazing games of all possible genres, which makes my jaw drop on a daily basis.

Fuck nostalgia. I don't miss the 8 bit/16bit eras or even the 90's fps birth with all its goodness. The only thing you are missing is your passion at that age, and you can work on that.

Its less about the passion of the age and more about finding ways to disconnect both physically and mentally from the world. It was certainly easier to do when were younger, but not impossible as an adult. Biggest obstacle i feel is how encroached the internet has become with our lives, its almost impossible to forget the real world when you're constantly being reminded it exists. I often get complaints from my family for not checking their messages even :'p

 

[wolffy66]

I'd say thats less due to being a kid and more due to the changes of our era. Its probably hard to understand as we've only been adults in this time, but something like 50 years ago, or even more recently like 20-30 years ago, even as adults it was quite easy to "tune-out" the world. Once you got home from the job, whatever it is that happened or is currently happening might as well not exist until you go back there the next day/week.

Today? Simple messages or emails, the mere fact you know they're there and that you're expected to know they're there, be from work, family, friends, whatever else, create this feeling that its impossible to get away from the world. This isnt because we're not kids anymore, this is a reality brought about by our times.

Theres probably some truth there. We're so connected to the internet now. The problems of your friends, family, and entire world are actively fighting for your attention. Advertising is squeezed into any spare space that your gaze may happen across. And it all has a dozen ways to reach you.

Its harder to escape and just forget it all. Its not just games either, its life in general. Which likely just amplifies what you're feeling in gaming because you probably get overstimulated by the worlds relentless drive for time.

 

[Punished Miku]

It sounds like you're describing attention deficit disorder. I'd try reading books. Or put your phone in the other room and play without distracting yourself. Trying working out your attention span like a muscle.

I find that a lot of my best and most focused gaming now occurs on weekends at like 6am with a cup of coffee. Everyone else is asleep. Nothing going on. Easy to focus. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons as well, so maybe that's part of it.

 

[Shifty1897]

I highly recommend disabling all notifications on your game console if you want to get back some of that immersion. Do you really care if your former coworker starts playing Stardew Valley?

 

[Guilty_AI]

It sounds like you're describing attention deficit disorder. I'd try reading books. Or put your phone in the other room and play without distracting yourself. Trying working out your attention span like a muscle.

I do both already. In fact, i always make a point to keep my messages phone away from me apart from the times i know its necessary. I also read quite a bit, perhaps even more than i game.

I find that a lot of my best and most focused gaming now occurs on weekends at like 6am with a cup of coffee. Everyone else is asleep. Nothing going on. Easy to focus. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons as well, so maybe that's part of it.

Now thats something worth trying. Wake up 4 in the morning to play games sounds like it'd be an experience

 

[justiceiro]

I hate that Nintendo gave up on their line of mini consoles.

Anyway, ever heard of evercade?

 

[dotnotbot]

Play on a PS5, it still gives me comfy warm feelings

 

[Guilty_AI]

Play on a PS5, it still gives me comfy warm feelings

Modern consoles are the worst in those regards. It feels like i'm on a mobile platform with how everything is designed.

 

[JimmyRustler]

I feel like we arent talking about the same type of immersion here. Yes, i can still enjoy a game with all of that, but i feel like theres a certain feeling of isolation you could get that has been lost to time.

... and it will never come back to anyone. What you talk about was only possible when you were a kid and before there was internet/smartphones. There is a reason why no game/movie past the invention of the smartphone managed to stick with the Zeitgeist like what came before and it's not necessarily because everything was so much better.

 

[SNG32]

Tbh going to pc restored the feeling for me. I got a tremendous backlog of retro gaming so games I couldn't beat as a child I will go back in play.

 

[Arsic]

The typos in this made this even more hilarious for me.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Yeah I miss being a kid and my brother coming to surprise me with "hey look at this cool game I just got for the Nintendo 64", which might happen once or twice a year which made those games feel all that more special. Or the first times I would buy a game on my own, like Metroid Prime or Tales of Symphonia, those I was hyped as hell for, had to save money for weeks for them and finally coming home from the store to play them felt like pure bliss.

Nowadays as an adult I could just buy all the games in the world, but that somehow makes them feel less special. Part of the magic is gone, but the fun is still there for sure at least.

It also helps that I play older games on a CRT setup with the original hardware, or that on PC I always play with all the overlays disabled.

 

[Humdinger]

Well said. I have similar feelings, but it extends to other media as well. When I was a teenager, for instance, I found it very easy to fully immerse myself in a fictional world. For me, that came in the form of science fiction. I could read for 8 hours straight - that probably wasn't healthy, but it shows my level of immersion in that imaginative world. But I'm decades older now, and I have great difficulty recapturing that sense of immersion in an imaginative, fictional world.

I'm talking about reading here, but the same thing applies to videogames. When I was first getting into games, I could easily spend 4-6 hours at a stretch, day after day, immersed in a huge open world game. Now, decades later, I am sick of open-world games. It's not just that I've seen the mechanics before so many times, it's more like, "Do I really want to invest 80 hours of my life in this game? This made-up fantasy world?
What's the point?"

I'm not saying that is a good way to think about it. I miss the days when I could imaginatively immerse myself like that. I'm just saying that as I've gotten older, it has gotten much harder to do that - not just with videogames but with movies and books as well. Part of it may be all the different things competing for our attention. Part of it may be a "been there, done that" feeling that erases the sense of wonder necessary to sustain immersion. Part of it may be my own deficits in imagination. Part of it is that I have a lot of other things I'd like to do, and losing myself for hours in a fictional world feels "escapist" to me, which I've coded as a negative but I am currently revising that opinion (if you're always stuck in the mundane, practical world, you may gain pragmatic benefits but your imagination dies, and that's not a good thing).

I'm sure there are other reasons, too.

 

[Fake]

This generation is sure bring that felling.

Everything sucks. Everyone just want to be DRM, Always Online, All games need to be Fortnite like, As colorful as fuck.

Is depressing. Quite at the edge of selling my PS5 to be honest.

 

[BlackTron]

Totally get it. Modded Switch with retroarch disconnected forever, done. Home screen forwarders mean I don't have to actually open retroarch and be overwhelmed with a giant vibe-killing list of roms just to play SMB3, but certainly can to explore old games I've never played before. It's the same sensation as holding an old Game Boy, just you and the game, and I like it.

I kept my stock, online Switch 1 which usually finds use so my niece can watch Youtube without the rest of the big bad Internet. Recently I took out my Switch 2 to play some Mario Strikers, and it gave me an error that "the software may be in use somewhere else" because she was on my other Switch watching fucking Youtube. The vibes are dead Nintendo. I didn't want to navigate all the online license BS to play a casual game, I put the Switch 2 away in disgust and grabbed the old modded one with Game Boy status

 

[SenkiDala]

This is something i've been pondering about while laying down in a sunday night. Theres a certain type of feeling i can't help but think missing in modern gaming.

Picture this: You're on your room. It's night, with only a dim yellow light illuminating the ambient. You pick up a case with a random game and go put it into your Playstation Saturn 64. You turn on the console, the splash screen appears acompanied by a short tune. And then you're thrown into a complately new world, separated from everything and everyone, maybe except a few noises from the streets outside or from the house inhabitants beyond your closed door. That game feels unique and precious, a brand new one from a dozen others in your collection. You remember how excited you were when you went to the store to buy it a few days ago, and how you probably wont be getting anything else for the foreseeable future, nor want to for all that you can think of right now is that game.

This probably didn't happen to you exactly like that, but you get the idea. Nowadays, regardless of where you play your games, the device likely is deeply connected to the internet. When you start your game, even a single player one with no mandatory internet connection, you can still receive messages from friends, get achievement notifications, or update prompts, constantly reminding you that that world is merely a part of a larger ecosystem. As you play, you may feel tempted to check new messages on your phone, or look up some guide online when you're feeling stuck. Heck, the game may even have some soft implementations of multiplayer, like scattered messages or scores. Because that experience isn't yours, its something millions of people also felt.

Then, when you exit the game, just a few button clicks away is a sea of completely new experiences, all easily and quickly accessible, at the touch of your fingertips, for a few bucks you probably wont miss. It should feel like a dream come true, but simultaneously also makes the world you were just in feel like less, more trivial, just another one in an ocean filled with vaguely similar ones.

To be clear, i dont dislike gaming today, nor do i doom and gloom about modern games, but i cant help but feel the way i engage with games shifted dramatically. I wonder if there is any way to re-enact that old feeling. Maybe wait for a holiday when i can be relatively free of worry, prepare some hot milk at night, turn off the internet in the entire house, then go play?

I'm not drunk.

I feel that often ! That's one of the HUGE reason I always felt hard to focus on PC gaming, I always felt it's just a... "frame" in front of everything else in my computer, in front of movies, music, chatting apps, internet browsers... And everytime I launch a PC game, I feel the rest of the content of the PC calling me "did you check updates on this forum, did you talk to him/her, did you check your emails, did you play the 100s of games that are waiting to be launched in your steam account that is opened on your computer"...

And now I feel it on modern consoles too... The last ones I felt "quiet" was the 360/PS3 even though it was connected, it was "okish", at an acceptable limit. Nowadays it became unbreathable... It really bothers me but there's nothing I can do about it.

It is maybe one of the reasons why I mainly play "older" games recently I dunno.

 

[Scrawnton]

How to tell me you didn't buy Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter without telling me you didn't buy Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter.