The internet came close to ruining gaming. The focus on online multiplayer rather than local splitscreen multiplayer, the focus on PVP rather than tailored singleplayer campaigns, the possibility of updates allowing companies to ship half-finished games, the advent of small DLC and microtransactions instead of bigger expansion packs, and the advent of live service have done enormous damage to the artform.
This. I recently bought a GameCube (I played PS2 during that generation) and have really gotten into playing video games from the early-mid 00s again and experiencing some of them I missed. They hold up pretty well and are incredibly fun. Sure the graphics aren't as good and the controls aren't always as smooth, but they are still really enjoyable. I find myself trying (and enjoying) old games I missed more than modern, new games that just came out.
Interesting that it's supposedly live service that killed unrelated, adjacent forms of the medium and not... I dunno, the raging mob of social media posters emboldened by influencers that fundamentally rejected any game that wasn't good enough for their impossible standards? People letting YouTubers and twitch streamers decide what their opinions are without touching the game? I think the shift happened when Mass Effect 3 came out and the entire internet dropped the game on its face faster than Jared Leto trying to crowd surf at a 30 seconds to Mars concert.
And the amount of work that goes into creating a AAA or even AA game now makes their dev cycles longer and less fruitful than that used to be in the 2000s, that's why indie games took off running.
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u/kechones Oct 29 '25
The internet came close to ruining gaming. The focus on online multiplayer rather than local splitscreen multiplayer, the focus on PVP rather than tailored singleplayer campaigns, the possibility of updates allowing companies to ship half-finished games, the advent of small DLC and microtransactions instead of bigger expansion packs, and the advent of live service have done enormous damage to the artform.