Gaming has been ruined for kids?

[@JoshStrifeSays]

The full podcast (3 hours long!!) includes a lot of general gaming/MMO talk like this, what it's like being a content creator and little bit as the hosts podcast name suggests. Runescape. @OSRSPodCasts ft. Josh Strife Hayes kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnmQaX2Aq8uDe6Msi=cQG6Sp5-P5wPS7gw

[@henrythegreatamerican8136]

Kids should be doing more important things with their computers like visiting adult websites and stuff so they can learn about the "birds and the bees" because most republican states are eliminating sex education from classrooms.

[@redplague2133]

Dude, please don’t talk shit about things you have no idea about. It does a great disservice to your image. “Sigma male” is a stupid trope invented by the same people who write dumb magazine articles like “How to tell if he’s «the one»”. The MANOSPHERE, however is basically (and I’m severely simplifying the concept here) a community for men who lack social skills or clues to help them find themselves so they don’t fill their inner void with porn or people who seek to exploit their cluelessness. The fact that theese days everyone is trying to ride the “redpill” wave doesn’t mean they understand what they’re talking about.

[@aaad3552]

A bunch of boomers lmao.

[@courtneydaniels5559]

I saw one of the "GAME" shops closing down near where i work. Reminded me of the amount of time i spent in there as a kid and teenager. Sad to see it go.

[@vincevirtua]

@@henrythegreatamerican8136 you should rename as not so great american.

[@MasterOfBaiter]

Ngl this is spot on. One thing I realized time and time again before acting on it was that I was getting all these huge games on a whim because it was a sale or because I needed to splurge to feel good or some thing and I just ended up with a tower of games I had never touched larger than that of games I did. It's so drastic compared to my childhood where I would get a game only like twice a year and would replay them again and again doing challenge runs if I got bored. I have come to really appreciate short games nowadays where I can have a full emotional experience in a conceivable amount of time.

[@viscole4436]

This is exactly how I am right now. I just... don't want to play games at the moment. Games were my hobby, because I could play one, feel like it was a new experience and when it was over dive back in again because it was all I had. Now, I have piles of games, because its just retail therapy. It's not the joy of exploring a new world, its the joy of buying a new world... I don't know what can bring that spark back, because I don't want to lose my favorite hobby. I've tried other hobbies and they were great, but they fell into the same trap, buying for the sake of it... I think its time to take a step back and just reevaluate what my hobby actually meant to me. edit: typos

[@MasterOfBaiter]

@@viscole4436 yeah tho the complicated thing about gaming is how diverse an experience it is. I had to force myself to sit down and catalog all my games and sort them by estimated time for completion and then slowly work down that list while being honest and discarding games I was just not enjoying. I also had to honestly push myself to play any game really and to not fall into the trap of trying to do everything. Especially in ubisoft open bloat type games. Sometimes it's alright just to rush the story. Hope you find whatever gives you your spark. I definitely found mine by changing my relationship to the hobby hope you manage on your end as well.

[@ggadams639]

yeah I started to do the same recently. I started playing Fear & Hunger and Vampire Survivors, it feels good to just play a game that works and respect your time while being original and generous.

[@bluepiggaming204]

100% spot on dude. I bought age of wonders diablo 4 remnant 2 and lords of the fallen. All kinds of stuff. And ive put nothing into them. Even tho i should like them. I dunno. Its mehhhh

[@bluepiggaming204]

​@viscole4436 i started playing magic the gathering and going to magic night on tuesdays at my local store to branch my gaming out. I feel like if i break up my video gaming with board gaming and table top games, it makes me enjoy the video gaming better.

[@OSRSPodCasts]

It's a pleasure being on the second screen with you Josh, thank you for an excellent podcast and your time 🙏

[@KyloB]

I am looking to make a video at the moment as a commentary on an MMO I play - would it be okay if I use a couple of clips from this podcast? Specifically when Josh talks about the phenomonology of gaming at 2:00 to about 3:30?

[@xstaycold]

I studied philosophy in university and my main interests were ancient greek philosophy and 19th-20th century german philosophy/phenomenology. I've been waiting for someone to make a connection between phenomenology and gaming. On the last few minutes of discussion regarding boredom - Heidegger, known for his contributions to phenomenology, thought of boredom as a "fundamental mood". People now desire to be occupied all the time. Heidegger believed that we should embrace boredom as it can allow the veil of meaning shrouding things to be lifted, which then reveals the nothingness of things. In boredom existence is stripped away from distractions, thus offering privileged access to the meaning of being. For those interested, search around for Heidegger and profound boredom.

[@Sniperbear13]

for us to know joy, we must know suffering. we can appreciate things because we know what its like to not have something. if we know boredom, we then can appreciate fun far more. everything is really a balancing act.

[@dawildbear]

@@Sniperbear13 sounds dangerously like "suffering is good actually" and I'm more of a "the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick" kinda guy.

[@ayeyuh6920]

@@dawildbear kind of a false equivalence, illness and boredom. either way boredom isn't suffering if you're comfortable with being bored. learning to entertain yourself is a good thing.

[@heyro3852]

​@@ayeyuh6920If you successfully entertain yourself when you get bored, can you really say you're bored anymore? 🤔

[@dawildbear]

@@ayeyuh6920 "for us to know joy, we must know suffering" and then I reply with sounds dangerously like "suffering is good actually" and I would agree with @heyro3852 and put forward that if " learning to entertain yourself is a good thing." then by extension being bored is a bad thing.

[@karimbojalil4770]

You are right about the chat room thing. I remember back in 2006 as a kid one of my fav activities in Runescape was training at the hill giants talking to people. I'm from Mexico and I believe a big part of my learning of english was through social interaction in online videogames, specially Runescape

[@sporeham1674]

Can you talk in wavy text irl?

[@karimbojalil4770]

With rainbow colors too@@sporeham1674

[@perryborn2777]

I knew a guy from Brazil who had a similar experience. We played dnd together online, and he told us that he learned most of his english from music and online video games

[@Sayheyyyjay]

oh man when i was 12 i saw WoW in best buy, i had no idea what i was going to get myself into and i loved every minute of it. The ride in the car just looking at the box full of excitement for what this new game will bring to actually installing it and adventuring in a whole new world. then when the burning crusade came out i rode my bike to and from game stop which was about 3 miles each way just to trade in enough games i didnt play just so i could afford it . man those were the days and this video brought back so many memories i didnt realize i even appreciated

[@Shmandalf]

There's very little wonderment in gaming anymore. Its all become really predictable, back in 2004 a lot of game companies were willing to take risks and create something unique - now taking risks is impossible when dev cycles are 6-7-8 years long and cost tens of millions of dollars. Its why this is the 'indie era' of gaming, because the only good fresh ideas are coming out of indie studios.

[@auroraboracat26]

I think nostalgia can be a hell of a drug. We look fondly back on installing games with multiple disc or blowing on the N64 cartridge but I can assure at the time we all thought it was tedious work! Defo the gaming environment has become more predatory tho like really hiring psychologist to get insight to ‘human behaviour’ aka incentives gambling impulses. It’s no surprise that kids are more geared to short term rewards.

[@TomJakobW]

This reminds me of a headline/main article of an important German newspaper‘s somewhat recent publish: “The attention span of our children should be sacrosanct to us!”

[@ToastyFruitcake]

I won't lie I really enjoyed watching the numbers tick down on VHS tapes rewinding and install bars on computer games, it was never tedious work. Getting dodgey cartridge tech to work made me feel like a genius, especially when I could show off my 'magic powers' to friends haha. I might just have been built different or something to find such inane things fun as a kid I dunno. Nowdays I'm about as ruined as the kids are with how the whole world is conditioned to say 'I want it now and I want it perfect'. We've all been spoiled for choice and quality on so many things.

[@ggadams639]

But now think about it, it's the opposite. Now we have a shit ton of games, but very few works or are worth your time. At least at the time they were technologic marvels and artistic endavors. You can't ignore that the game at the time, to sell they needed to be good and we could feel it as a gamer, we felt respected. Now not shot a game at launch will have all content or not be a live service.

[@vallarra2524]

I mean that’s always existed sorry to tell you. When you level up in a game or get a reward and there is a flashy animation with a noise that plays, that’s literally what Slot machines use to give you a dopamine rush for a reward. They maybe got more bold with it to create actual gambling in loot boxes, but the psychology of making rewards feel more rewarding has always been around

[@zeroattentiongaming820]

​@@ggadams639You act as if garbage shovelware is something new. Companies were putting out pure trash caah grabs for decades now. Difference is now we have easily accesible reviews to warn us of the trash before we waste our money on it. That wasn't always the case and you wouldn't know a game was garbage until you had paid for it

[@DalmarWolf]

I work with toddlers (2-6 year olds), and have been doing so for 15 years now. What we do is guide the children in learning new skills, encourage them, cheer them on when it gets tough and then celebrate when they finally manage (like doing monkey bars for example, or learning to do up a zipper on their clothes). That way they learn the skill, but also learn that they can learn things even when it's tough.

[@CoNteMpTone]

That last part is super important and basically the thing way too few people learn.

[@LeTeslaRaptor]

I vividly remember being upset with my dad for interrupting the Baldur's Gate installation because he wanted to burn photos onto a disc. He just told me "do it later" and that always meant next week. Our family PC was locked during the night and the only way I was able to install it was overnight during the week. I had to change the PC password and begin each disc at bedtime then change it out the next day.

[@skippyzk]

Worth it. Best game ever

[@tawnos1787]

The thing Josh is talking about, the phenomenology of an experience, is the same reason why vinyl has made a comeback. Going to the record store, flipping through shelf after shelf of vinyl records, picking one to take home, looking at the cover art, feeling the weight of it, putting it on the turntable, dropping the needle, hearing the crackle of the stylus, having to flip it halfway through. They're all tangible parts of the overall process that have nothing to do with the actual music itself, and they add a lot of emotional heft to the whole experience. Is it an efficient or convenient way to listen to music? Hell no. But why do the things we do for enjoyment need to be efficient or convenient? Games have the same issue (MMOs in particular). And it's why old school MMOs have such dedicated fanbases. Note: Yes, I like vinyl. No, I'm not a vinyl purist. Some music sounds good on vinyl, a lot of music doesn't. And I refuse to pay out the ass for them. I'll pick one or two up at an antique or resale shop occasionally for a bargain.

[@Temperans]

Yep its not just how easy something is otherwise rogue-likes and rogue-lites would not be so popular. Its about respecting the player's time and giving a good experience. People liked Vampire Survior because it was a $5 game that got you playing as soon as you opened the game. It was frustating to die and have to restart; But its a 20-30 minute game and every death improved your chance to win. Most MMO are a grind for the sake of grinding and you are expected to like that because "back in my day we had to grind". Not because the gameplay is actually fun. There are people who play MMOs who think that if you are not losing everything on death then you are playing wrong for crying out loud.

[@1_underthesun]

It's more about the ritual (the journey) than the destination. Today, far too much is about the destination.

[@Temperans]

@@1_underthesun The destination is important. Its why tragedy works. So to be more specific its that they forget that you need a journey in the first place. Its why there are so many Gary Stu/Mary Sue.

[@XAltrus]

This is exactly why I hate teleporting and flying mounts in MMOs. Cause I realized they cheapen my experience of the game; makes everything feel small and insignificant. And no, in response to what a lot of people often say to me, just forcing myself not to use those things doesn't create the same experience, because its in the context of I'm forcing myself to do that. Some of my fondest memories of FFXI where spawned from being forced to do things like actually wait on and take the Sea Ferries or Airships; instead of it being a teleport button. Its often hard to find good experiences in modern MMOs if your focus isn't on like endgame raiding and combat because all the other experiences in them tend to get QoLed out of the games. In my opinion, and I acknowledge this might be rosecolored glasses, there's a certain amount of filler an MMO needs around the dungeons, raids, and quests to make it an adventure, instead of a spreadsheet with combat instances and a pretty background.

[@beckstheimpatient4135]

The very distinct sound of flipping through an old record collection. The tiny scratch as you place the needle down. The sound of DUST because maybe you didn't clean the vinyl properly. The smell of old cardboard and the shuffle of the sleeve inside it.

[@metalucipherable]

My favorite game of all time is Earthbound. I vividly remember my grandparents taking me to Blockbuster to rent a game for the weekend, seeing that big box on the shelf, being slightly deflated when the clerk said it was purchase only (not rentable), and then my grandmother buying it on the spot. Then on the way home realizing I got that massive strategy guide themed like a travel guide. I love that game for so much more than just that it is a really good game.

[@LCTesla]

My nephews are having a great time gaming in this era as far as I can tell. If there is a problem, it's that there is an embarrassment of riches; it's hard not to get them addicted.

[@V3x0r]

My nephews are having a great time. They wanted to play Fortnite (their friends do) but thankfully my brother banned them from it. They love Smash Bros and Subnautica.

[@vvillhelmzecheekclapper7984]

Tell ur siblings to try getting off the dopamine themselves and parenting.

[@V3x0r]

@@vvillhelmzecheekclapper7984 My brother only uses his PC for work. The nephews get 1 hour of gaming time a day. None if they're behaving badly.

[@starfishflogging7726]

@@vvillhelmzecheekclapper7984 its just kids talking, they dumb :D, no ne is actually an uncle/aunt here.

[@cancerino666]

Addiction is no joke man. There should be regularion against addiction-mechanics.

[@One_Pun]

Don't worry, the kids will grow up and won't have enough time to play the games they anticipate so much because they will have to work and have families. So they will eventually wind up in the same situation, just a bit later.

[@BloodyArchangelus]

Japan from 90x thinks otherwise.

[@DeltaOfNothing]

I mean, idk about you but a lot of people in my generation (and younger, probably) don’t want families for a host of reasons. But yeah, adult life still pulls you away from that stuff

[@Zectifin]

@@DeltaOfNothing Hell I'm 37 and most of my friends are childfree and don't plan on it. its becoming more and more common these days.

[@hqueso]

I had an Atari 2600, another friend had an Intellivision, another friend had the Coleco system, and fourth had a big TV and a large rec room we could all fit in. Other friends had no gaming system at all. Gaming was communal for us because you just never had everything yourself. Limits brought us together. I remember 5 people chipping in to buy a game (River Raid) even though only one of us had a system that could play it.

[@seanwilliams7655]

Some of my favorite gaming memories are hanging out with a bunch of friends, playing Madden or SF2, and just passing the controller back and forth.

[@cancerino666]

Thinking how great we had it is nostalgia. But I am concerned how much games are nowadays made to get kids addicted, and how in that process they don't teach long-term rewards, frustration or boredom

[@adjcsee4476]

Back then, the experience of gaming wasn’t just playing the game. It was the experience of sitting down on the couch or carpet, having your cup of water or soda, flipping the N54 power button, waiting for the the game to load, actually letting the music and starting video play out, then getting to the start menu. It’s the small things people forget to appreciate. Even on the PS1/2, GameCube or original Xbox/360. The iconic start screen they made when you first turn them on after a long day of school. It’s the journey to get to play those great games. Even better when it’s with friends.

[@eXilz0]

I could listen to Josh for hours. His intervention are always so insightful, amazing stuff.

[@jeffkanning2388]

Hi Josh. I’m in my 50’s and fondly remember playing text-only games, and the challenges of trying to find the right combination of words. I remember my first 300 baud modem and watching the text scroll across the screen one letter at a time. And I’m sure it goes back further. I remember playing outside, after dark, with the neighborhood kids. I bet people look back with nostalgia when they used to play with a stick and a wheel. It’s not a new phenomenon. :) Love your videos! Thanks for the link to the whole thing. There goes my productivity for the morning.

[@ggadams639]

There is nostalgia, I'm younger and can see that in the last 10 years the way we consume media is really bad. A lot of games are a bad influences on people now. Before they were artistic and good for the brain, but not anymore. There should be heavy regulation on games to prevent gambling or weird sexy child characters in asian games.

[@ThePeskyjay]

I'm 50 plus too. Graphics today still blow me away as I remember when the screen was mainly black and white (eg Pong). And when GW2 came out and you could go in the water, that was just next level wow! OSRS is nostalgia for me and I will always pop in and out of it.

[@butHomeisNowhere___]

​@@ThePeskyjayI'm 36 and I remember thinking graphics couldn't possibly get any better after seeing the cutscenes in Final Fantasy 7 haha Imagine that!

[@SorarikoMotone]

as if western games never had almost naked women on the box arts, its as if... the west never been any better than asia in that regard, wowie @@ggadams639

[@chriswheeler8143]

I remember how amazing the graphics in wing commander were. Went back to it recently and couldn’t even work out what I was looking at! I remember when computer games were code printed in a computer magazine and had to type it out first! I remember when hyper load meant that games took only two minutes to load not five (but usually failed!).

[@Malice16]

I saw 37:00 minute video and thought: "Ah, I'll throw this on and see what it is about. Maybe I'll listen to it a few minutes in the background while I look at something else." The entire conversation was so good and so interesting to me that I not only stayed for the entire thing, I only tabbed out two to three times to quickly look something related to the conversation up and then came back to the video. I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed this video and listening to everyone's points. I'm going to go check out the full thing now. Thank you!

[@nauscakes1868]

One of the 'early mysteries" I miss greatly from childhood is wondering what's behind locked doors, or what's on hidden ledges, or down alleyways locked behind invisible walls. I used to love trying to guess what's behind inaccessible places. Exploring Warcraft was a lot of fun wall-jumping. The Karazhan catacombs is often the biggest example of a "hidden place." But as I've grown older, and played a lot of games. And explored a lot of locked doors, and hidden areas with no-clip mods (in single player games). I've come to realize that like 99% of the time, there's nothing cool behind a locked door. It's just pure unfinished game. Sneak up on a ledge you weren't suppose to be? Nothing there. Fall through the map. Bug your save file. Ultra wide monitors are kinda neat for some of that too. Get to see a little behind the scenes. In one of my favorite games, Bioshock: Infinite, there's a sequence at the very very end. The LAST cinematic. There are characters that walk into frame. But if you have an ultra-wide -- they 'pop' into existence. They spawn in at the edges, and then walk to the frame. Assuming you're not ultra-wide. It took a really climatic cinematic and made it laughable at how janky it was to see behind the veil.

[@dazt6h]

When I play Skyrim nowadays, I have to spend a lot of time installing all the mods I want and get the to work together. This takes hours. Sometimes more time that what I'll spend actually playing if I'm focusing on something specifically. But I love it so much I keep doing it, and even that bug fixing and tweaking of the mods is fun to me and when I finally start the game, and there's no crashes or weird stuff happening... The satisfaction is incredible.

[@emanmodnar2]

I'm just sitting here thinking about how I just told my husband I cant tolerate playing FF14 any more because I spent an entire decade trying to get people to play with me, because I enjoyed group activities. Now that its almost entirely single player friendly and only raid content is multiplayer; I don't want to play anymore but all my friends I had begged to play before are suddenly enjoying it.

[@darkdruidsvale]

ouch, i kinda feel that, i got into apex legends when it came out but all my friends didnt like BR's or didnt have a ps4, i found some good friends who play it and we still hangout sometimes even though i dont play apex as religiously as i did at launch (i took until like S4 to actually get good at apex with tutorial vids and the like)

[@shanephillips4011]

Ease of access is my biggest issue as a 37 year old gamer. I tend to spend more time looking at games instead of playing them. Like searching Netflix for 2 hours paralyzed by choices to then never actually watch anything.

[@Ar1AnX1x]

Josh's jacket looks so realistic I can't actually decide if its CGI/A.I or its real

[@sporeham1674]

And all of them are possibilities knowing Josh

[@borjaslamic]

Look at how it's textured, it's a very good render but they gave up half way

[@Exocraze]

I used to go to the library with my friends regularly to play Runescape for the limited amount of time we were allotted by the library, and it was so much fun. I used to love going to the local library and walking around the computer section to see if anyone was playing Runescape or Neopets so I could talk to them about it. Good times.

[@bloodmarth]

The mic quality differences is astonishing

[@oothatguyoo7643]

Going to add this as a reason why I collect DVDs or vintage gaming consoles: it's physical experience. Being able to enjoy these forms of media in their entirety, not just streaming it on PC/phone. I can only hope I can pass this along to my kids one day

[@Blazestar2000]

I've recently gotten my hands on four N64 consoles that a friend wanted refurbished. Once I got the first one working again, I decided to play some DK64 on it for a few hours. In doing so, I realized how much the interaction wjth physical media really added to the whole human experience. Setting up the console, pulling out the game cartridges, picking one; settling down with that single game for the evening - it really showed me what I felt was missing when playing the same N64 games via Nintendo Switch Online. More of your senses are engaged through the journey of physical media, than simply downloading a ton of games right from the couch. When I think of going to Blockbuster or my other local video stores, I can mentally recall the touch, tastes, smells and texture of those places. When downloading modern games now, its just the same ol' living room and its a much less vibrant experience.

[@nottucks]

I recently decided to watch Inuyasha for the first time only using DVD on my ps3. It both made me pace myself way better and made me enjoy it more because of that buildup to it.

[@1gengabe]

I became a programmer because it has that feel, the effort of making something watching the game or program come together, the mystery of why it isn’t working. For me it is all there

[@stevel.3903]

"removing the challenge" is a much deeper problem than only for MMORPGs. I'm a teacher and one hand I like the idea that everyone gets the help they need for succeeding in a task / challenge. But on the other hand for some pupils it just prevents them from overcoming a hardship or even something as simple as writing something down. It became a struggle to convince pupils to write something down if they just can take a photograph or ask me to upload the presentation. In university this seemed quite normal, but many people figured out how to learn until then. And even students suffer the consequences of bulimical memorizing strategies when they need their acquiered knowledge years later. It's not the people, it's needing willpower taking the harder option and willpower is a limited ressource. More options erode our willpower further and further.

[@keegobricks9734]

This is by far my favorite Josh Strife monologue. I just can't quite understand why he only decided to use the bottom-right corner of the screen like that.

[@ucFJhnukZjfLtc3dPfZrh4qThSg3o]

Back in the days time had such a different meaning each day and each week was a whole thing, a year was like an eternity, while nowadays years go by without anything happening because nothing has meaning anymore

[@FoundBoy]

Hey, so my experience as 2003 kid, that experienced the end of shift from offline to online experience. The biggest point of anticipation was seeing store page on steam, reading the reviews and maybe watching a video about it and wanting to play, but beetween want and can there was - asking parents, waiting for the time I could play, and actually downloading it. Some things stayed the same, I still "put games I want on a backburner" just to let it sit there, maybe I got something better to do, or other games to finish. Anticipation is not specifically gone for good, it might've shortened, yes, but also shifted into other forms. At the end of the day it's up to oneself, or parents, to create anticipation. You can say that hype is just anticipation spread and amplified. In the age of information, next threshold is not "download the created game", but "think about game that is yet being created".

[@ggadams639]

You can't replace the joy of having a physical object and knowing that there is a good experience in it, no downloading time. Also no reviews, so you could appreciate it as much as you could. While now with reviews, you'll just look at it and think maybe it's not that good. Because of the world now, people, especially the new generation, they have a hard time appreciating things for themself, and it's not their fault, it's an unconscious thing part of culture now.

[@Sheepy765.]

@@ggadams639You can still have a good memory attached to a game while not having it physically. While yes things like the steam library page and xbox store page are digital, you can still look back on those fond memories of playing a game by looking at it sitting there on the list. An example for me would be Skyrim, I poured many, many hours into Skyrim for 360 and while I have neither the disk nor the game now, seeing that cover art alongside everything else in my collection still triggers that same sense of nostalgia.

[@FoundBoy]

@@ggadams639 tru, physicality has a sort of permanence to it. Unrelated to anticipation of gaming, but i do prefer my dnd physical, be that sheets, dices, or sessions themselves. And reviews are like will-o'-the-wisps, follow them too far, or take them too seriously, and you can miss out. Judge a game for yourself, see how it looks, plays, genres and tropes, etc, and only then factor in some guys opinion. I think on escapist there was a cold take, or 3 minutes about this topic

[@ggadams639]

​@@FoundBoy The issue with reviews is that it's really hard to ignore it. Even later, if you liked the game or not, you will check what other people think, which makes people very angry and sensible online. What it would be just having an opinion on flaws, it's now a religious crusade to just prove a point. To me it's really tiring to get into a game and go past all that. Like for Baldur's Gate were everyone online cannot stop to be horny, and how abnoxious most FF14 players are like a in a cult. It really prevents to get into that. Currently I found fun again in smaller games, but when they have a little success, you can count that every youtubers will make videos like "THIS HIDDEN GEM IS THE BEST GAME EVER MADE" and then it ruins my fun again. I have to ACTIVELY avoid and block all those content when I start liking something. It's a pain the ass. While before, when you liked something you actually wanted to know more, now you don't even want that you are feed with an infinite amount of that content. That was longer than expected, but you see my point I hope.

[@Salubrious388]

I’m nearly 50yrs old and the biggest thing I’ve experienced is that people don’t want to be social in games any more. Wow was great upon release because it gave us a platform to communicate. The gameplay was mediocre but was had fun because we were a large group of friends on Team Speak having fun. I’ve played a lot of mmo games lately (wow classic included) and it feels trash because no one wants to talk and build a community. Now MMOs are full of people that just follow KZbin meta builds and build guides. This makes gaming soulless and has resulted in me playing solo games like Total War: Warhammer 3, Blood Bowl 3 and Valheim. I’d love games to create servers for social people and also create different servers for more solo players too. This would help channel people to the correct communities for their enjoyment.

[@Shmandalf]

RP servers are pretty much the 'social' servers. People are waaay more willing to socialize when the focus of the server is RP and socializing, and you get way more player organized events and things on those servers too.

[@chellybub]

Have you spent any time checking out the steam communities? There are also a lot of community groups too where people have chat rooms and all sorts of stuff going on. Share images and vids from their games, or just chat about stuff on and off topic. You should look into it, I know the Total War Warhammer Community is large, so I am sure you could find some people to communicate with :)

[@RobotMasterSplash]

​@Shmandalf Dealing with the weirdos in those places on top of the extra effort you have to put in to RP just isn't worth it.

[@gamestory3479]

The gaming attachment is definitely still real. Minecraft and Pokémon are obsessions with my 2 boys (7 and 10), and, more importantly, their school friends. It's that shared interest with friends that I think drives attachment. They'll remember their love of both growing up.

[@naturalistmind]

I remember being a kid and making a self challenge to get a game from GameStop, beat the game and then return it, I think that's how I became addicted to MMOs before I knew that they existed.

[@kokorochacarero8003]

The OG steam refund speedrun

[@Runescapedocumentary]

holy shit when josh starts speaking at 1:40 his voice is so damn smooth i feel like i should drink more tea

[@bjwaters]

(WARNING: Massive wall of text) One of the things I think about, especially when it comes to generations of gamers, is that this is a very new concept. For the longest time, gaming felt like a much more unified community, largely because it was a very new community. But now that gaming is (arguably) 50 years old, we just can't be united anymore. Think about music. It's been around for so long that it would be laughable to consider to think of music fans or musicians as part of a single community. It is so fractured into various genres and cliques and niche communities to an near infinite degree! The same has happened to books and movies. So gaming is going through some growing pains as it reaches this point of realizing that the modern gaming experience is do different from when it started. (Actual) boomers and Gen X'ers started in the Golden Age of the late 70s and early 80s, and I can imagine them seeing Millennial folks (like me) who grew up on the NES, PS1, early MMORPGs, etc., as being spoiled because they had so many games available to them with much more dynamic experiences than the Atari 2600 or Commodore 64 were capable of. And now that Millennials are reaching a collective sense of self-awareness about their own generation and realizing that the world doesn't exclusively cater to them anymore like they used to and there is this new generation coming up behind them that is getting all the attention (and advertising), and so the Millennials, who have been the active voice of gaming, especially through the era of voice amplification that is the rise of the internet, slowly recognizing that gaming just isn't as united as it used to be. Ultimately, this is not a bad thing, especially since other mediums have survived this as well. However, I do think it would help us to recognize that our experiences are not universal, but rather contextual, bound by the culture and technology of our times (again: look at music as it bloomed in the Album Era through vinyl records, cassette tapes, cds, and how such things are considered quaint now, as only the diehards bother to buy music anymore). This means that our gaming experiences are unique, and somewhat special, but no less valuable than the experiences of past or future generations. I don't know if gaming has been "ruined" for kids (honestly, I was expecting this video to be more about monetization and THAT has tweaked the gaming landscape so wildly). I think that kids will make their own connections and nostalgia with the games they are currently playing, making their own, unique experiences, and companies are eager to provide that to them. However, this means we also need to acknowledge that game companies are going to stop caring about us Millennials over time as we become a less profitable demographic. Sure, we're probably playing way more games than the Gen X'ers did at the same age, but it's still a diminishing demographic, and we have to be okay with that. If there is one thing that DOES give me hope, it is the drastic lowering-of-the-bar when it comes to making video games, allowing for the indie and hobbiest markets to thrive. In our day, yeah, it was about playing what you had, but now, in a world where word-of-mouth is all the more powerful, discussions will grow about weird and unique gaming experiences (and perhaps even older ones), not because they're catering to mainstream masses, but that they are novel in an ocean of samey, cookie-cutter gaming experiences. Sure, the masses will have their mainstream hits, but the future of gaming will be on those younger shoulders who look beyond the over-advertised in favor of the weird and strange and novel, and the older generations can be the ones that can help guide them to the cream of both the past and present, as our experience helps us identify which games really do have the depth the medium is capable of, even among the new releases. (I'm sure somewhere up there is a good, intelligent point. I admit I'm a long-winded writer, but I hope folks find something of value among all that. If you've made it this far, thank you for taking the time, and have a good rest of your day. I'm gonna go play something old, now.)

[@0FFICERPROBLEM]

It's not often I'd like to _save_ a YT comment because it makes so much sense, in an articulate, well thought out way. Kudos!

[@CalliKira]

This is why I find myself going back and playing Age of Mythology every now and then

[@armorkny]

omg same! I sometimes sit and listen to the menu music while relaxing it's so good @@CalliKira

[@Elgar337]

-Find the differences between the top two pictures. -It's the same picture.

[@azurebluegames]

Basically the issue is the attention span of newer/younger gamers, their patience/learning to wait vs. being bored too quickly, and putting in the effort to overcome challenges vs. easy/fast rewards.

[@ironymaiden1089]

That anticipation is now replaced by the pre-release marketing. Teasers, trailers, dev-Q&A. People still have discussions about them and it genuinely makes them look forward to the game, if the marketing content is good.

[@theperfectbeing]

Funny enough this isn't just about video games, it's the same thing comes down to teaching kids practical skills like carpentry, cooking, gardening, gathering, etc. Growing a garden, tending to it and then harvesting it and using the products to make a meal from scratch, along with baking a pie gives a fundamentally different experience and set of memories compared to just stopping at the grocery store. I still think that MMOs could pull this generation in but it really needs to nail the narrative experience and the struggle, then highlight that struggle with allowing the players to test their skills within a group event. I've personally never had an experience in gaming as satisfying as I did during WoW classic during the events leading to the opening of the gates of AQ. The entire server collecting millions of materials, endless dungeon farm runs with guilds/randoms, gigantic pvp battles in Silithus contesting the hives for their materials that lasted literal days on end and to top that all off every single piece of gear I worked on my characters was practically tested during those events. This is why "balanced gear" pvp in an MMO is a fundamentally stupid concept because players do not get the experience of using their character based on the worked invested into it. Overcoming challenges and struggles is actually making a come back and you can see this in all of the gym grind culture, based memes about gardening/self sufficiency, meditation, etc. You see this same trend in the huge success of Elden Ring despite it completely demoralizing people with its difficulty.

[@TerraFilmTV]

Having my Sega Dreamcast lid with coasters for drinks placed on top of it to get the laser to read. Just to play the demo disk with power stone on it. Meanwhile I had Poweman 5000 playing on my thrift store boombox, is such an incredible memory in my mind. Never lose that inner child we all have. I’ve been reliving some of my childhood memories in my head that brought me so much joy, and tbh they’ve helped me get through so much. I’m happy to have grown up when I did. Thank you for shedding light on this Josh

[@TerraFilmTV]

I also wrote down that I wanted to be an Astronaut when I grow up back in 1st year of school. Followed by strong like my dad. Hahahaa

[@nauscakes1868]

I forgot that long funny word Josh was using about the experience as a holistic thing. But I have to say, the entire experience behind FFXIV's 10 year long MSQ was certainly one of those "once in a lifetime" moments that'll live with me forever. I basically quit the game after the MSQ, I don't really play it for night clubs or the social stuff. But holy hell that journey with the Scions. That long, long journey was quite an experience. I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to have experienced it.

[@luhcsgrimm8857]

Kids as a whole dont have these same waiting experiences. Some can still experience due to poverty. But as a whole, no. They experience such a different kind of experience. Ones that scary to think about.

[@Zectifin]

yeah it can be a bit mixed. there are kids back even in the day who had parents with money and didn't have as much of this experience because they had access to top of the line gaming PCs and every game they wanted to buy and then there are kids these days who don't have money for that. I gave a friend of mine an old gaming PC that was like 10 years old at the time for their kid and gave steam share access to my massive steam library so their daughter could play it and I could see her play it all the time, but the games she could play on it were always very limited and she had to run it on low. I'm sure she'll have super fond memories of playing a super old TF2 cus it was something she could run on it while her friends were playing the newest call of duty or fortnite.

[@novesix69]

I find myself enjoying games significantly more the less I know about them. Once I start looking at content and information about the game, even just trailers sometimes, I end up losing interest after a while; there is no mystery, as if I already spoiled myself of the experience and already figured it out.

[@professorpwerrel]

My issue is wanting to play a game perfect or 100%, and not miss any content or experience that the devs put time into putting in. After playing Cyberpunk and all the missable missions and wrong dialog just makes me annoyed that I picked wrong just because I didn't look it up.

[@nauscakes1868]

I remember one of the big selling points for the original vanilla WoW Collector's Edition was that it came with a single-disc DVD to install it. I mean, there were other cool things with the collector's edition for sure, but that single-disc DVD was a major selling feature for me.

[@chaosgyro]

The MMO-Lite space is still thriving, as well as the MMO style gachas as mentioned. People aren't turned away from long grinds or work inherently, but they are turned away by clunky obstacles up front. The MMO-lite and gacha genres break the formula into quick, discrete experiences that do away with the multi-hour commitments required of older MMO dungeons and raids. They also remove the tedious time spent looking for groups as, once again, that's no longer a fun or novel experience in today's gaming environment. People are still willing to put in time, and suffer inconveniences, but the times and inconveniences are different than the ones traditional MMOs continue to try and sell them.

[@seanwilliams7655]

I wouldn't say it's been ruined, but I will say they're not the target demographic anymore unlike 30 years ago.

[@Detlevboi]

No, WE (former children, now adults/boomer gamers) are not the target audience anymore. Children are definitely still a target audience.

[@seanwilliams7655]

@@Detlevboi not from what I can see. Teens, maybe, but not the 7-12 group that was the target in the 80s and early 90s.

[@vvillhelmzecheekclapper7984]

The target is most NPCs right here.

[@Detlevboi]

@@seanwilliams7655 think of the mobile market. Also minecraft, roblox and fortnite are full of 7-12 year olds. Those are all huge franchises. While "boomer games" like osrs or path of exile for example are pretty rare and have relatively small communities.

[@wrongthinker843]

30 years ago was 1993. Even disregarding low availability of hardware, most games by far were made for adults. Today you have hundreds of trash games made to exploit kids, while most games are rated teen. It's not a good thing, but it's definitely a shift in target demographic toward kids.

[@thomasjohnston1805]

I think they will miss watching games improve. I remember being taken aback by Beneath a steel sky on the amiga. Going from Final fantasy 7 to 8 was mind blowing.

[@holo_val]

I think one of the biggest factors not brought up in this discussion (maybe it was in the full podcast) about the experience of new players entering MMOs and games in general nowadays is the effect of capitalism's "endless growth" mentality on the design and development of games. In particular, when Josh talked about how games are designed not to cause anxiety in people by being too hard I couldn't help feeling this is rooted in the desire for modern games to make themselves as broadly appealable and marketable as possible. I think it has less to do with our cultural attitude to stressors and rather more to do with product design intended to appeal to lowest common denominators of the human experience in an attempt to sell more product. Games are now products that must have as minimal barrier to entry, as maximum an engagement, and as enticing a value proposition as possible to get more people in the door, playing for longer, and spending more. Remove the stressors, ramp the dopamine, sell solutions to problems, and you have a winning combination for fast profits.

[@James_Bee]

How is that capitalism's fault? Don't worry, rhetorical. If you keep buying it, they're going to keep selling it.

[@SvengelskaBlondie]

29:28 Some time ago, I completed two really hard quests in Runescape. Those quests where Sins of the Father and Song of the Elves. I struggled with both of them due to both having multi-phase boss fights. Was really satisfying beating them, not just for the struggle but also for the areas that opened up for me. The latter was even nicer since it made Prifddinas accessible for my account. Ended up spending quite some time there, training thieving, agility and mining (gotta love the 5 rune rocks that the prif mine has)..

[@mattiedoa4070]

Only thing I detest about the younger generation, was they thought that micro transactions were fine and ok, I remember my son asking for v bucks and I was so taking aback buy the price and way they we’re targeting kids. Yeah I bought dlc packs back in the day but this is a while other level and we’re stuck with it because Fortnite kids bought them.

[@travisleabeck2572]

I know that this is cut, but I love how attentive they are to Josh's conversation style. He wouldn't be offended if they interrupted him on any given thought, but they are so patient as to let him make his full point no matter how long it takes. That's a a respect you don't see often

[@joshmartling]

I never realized how much of a privilege it was for me to play Skyrim on a shitty old CRT TV, or to play KOTOR on my moms laptop before school and when she got home late that evening, or to wait all day for 6 discs to download LOTR BFME. I feel so lucky to have had that experience growing up. Thank you for resurfacing these great memories, fellow Josh :)

[@derpderpin1568]

I mean I feel like that already happened like 15 years ago. A little after Modern Warfare 2 there was a noticeable shift and AAA quality went right down the crapper.

[@spacemansquid]

One thing I wish was covered was how some/most MMOs are actually hollowing out the entire social aspect that made the experience great for older players back in the day. Load up just about any modern MMO, and even some of the older ones that are still supported, and you'll find an LFG system where you can literally filter out the type of people you want for a raid or dungeon or whatever. You're also bound to find an auction house. No more spamming "lfg" or "wts" in chat in whatever passes for the widely accepted hub world or city for everyone be at. Log in, fire up a window, click sell or join, and you're back on your way playing the same raid or dungeon for the millionth time with people you didn't even have a conversation with

[@Shmandalf]

The thing is that social interaction on that level was a big novelty back then. Now everyone communicates daily through various apps or games and that novelty just doesn't exist anymore, it doesn't feel the same because it isn't. Stuff like Battlenet was ahead of its time simply because it had a regional lobby where you could talk with other players without being in a game with them, for example. Now thats a common feature in almost every game. That said, there is still demand for games without features like modern LFG. I've been playing a FF11 private server with thousands of players and everyone HAS to seek out parties to level up (Everything after level 10 is extremely difficult to solo, if not impossible), and the community is excellent as a result. It has a LFG but it isn't automatic, you have to contact people and talk to them to form parties.

[@mcfarvo]

If your kids don't find this phenomenon of "hard work pays off eventually" or "delayed gratification is often better long-term" in games, then go with sports, lifting, running, crafts, trade skills, etc.

[@Volenzar]

I remember my first computer had a cassette deck. You had to literally rewind the game to replay it. I remember 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy disks. I remember installing games that came on 20+ disks. I remember putting a clear plastic sheet on my TV in order to play hockey because that clear plastic sheet was the bulk of the "graphics". I don't feel old at all after hearing this. :P

[@adomisk3047]

I think a big issue is delayed gratification. As Josh mentions, in mmos you gotta wait 40-50 hours for the "good bit." Its going through the struggles and boring parts that suck ass and then being hit with the "good bit" thats so gratifying and satisfying. It makes you say "Man, this was all worth it."

[@Xairos84]

I get you, but we can't really enforce delayed gratification. Everything is really just easier today

[@adomisk3047]

@Xairos84 I agree that we can't force delayed gratification, but we can definitely "train" kids early into it. As an example, if you're out shopping and a kid wants a toy, you can be like "Let's do all our shopping first, get the toy last and go pay." It's hard as hell and kids will do things like throw tantrums, but it's probably better for em in the long run. Kinda goes back to Josh's point of "We shouldn't have kids avoid difficulty"

[@ZapatosVibes]

"Need a ton of money, be very passionate" Steven Shariff has entered the chat.

[@thesci-ficafe3050]

Josh, you might not read this, but it has to be said: I love your observations on Phenomenology, specially since you use them to show how gaming is yet another way to engage in meaninful experiences. Thank you for this, and thank you for your excellency.

[@WakoDoodle]

Anyone remember when games had a little reward while installing the game? Warcraft 3 had cool music as a recap of the story, age of empires had units walk up to and builf a momument that represented your game; zoo tycoon had a little animal animation and some music. It hyped you put while installing, even if it was 1 CD. Shoot even the manuals used to be exciting! From little bits of story, to artwork to screenshots in black and white; I remember buying one from a 2nd hand store on holiday and reading the box and manual because I couldn't play it until the holiday was over. It was like a build up to a payoff and was amazing!

[@johanlahti84]

So much nostalgia came to me watching this. I remember getting stuck in Zelda: Link's awakening. Wandered around the map for weeks looking for a hint. Was young, and english isn't my native tounge. So missed the context of something. My mother had to call a Nintendo hotline for game hints. And I could progress further.

[@jimbotheimpaler4756]

The only hotline you ever want your mom to be on!

[@frorociousexpress]

The connection you made with bodybuilding makes a lot of sense. So many kids who get into lifting nowadays see so many juiced up influencers claim to be natty and give them unreal expectations to have. Or you'll have kids wanting to jump on PEDs cuz they wanna get big as quick as possible and risk their health for it

[@Eta_Hoyimi]

Nah bro, as a 30 something, we're just out of touch. "Where we droppin" is todays "No oddjob".

[@Some_Awe]

its interesting to hear these different views because i played runescape, at my dads job, on his pc, couple days a week in like 2006, and i remember installing things overnight, sims 2 on multiple discs, the first tomb raider, gamecube games, pokemon stadium, gameboy, ds, dsi, 3ds, wii sports, wario ware, dozens upon dozens of MMO's, but this never stopped, i played fortnite when it launched, before battle royale and after, loved it, h1z1 into dayz and pubg i feel nostalgic towards osrs AND fortnite, and roblox and club penguin, and maplestory AND maplestory 2 and csgo and gmod and payday 2 and final fantasy 7 and kingdomhearts and dragon age and modern warfare 2 at my friends house, im looking forward to trying fucking gorilla tag now. this nostalgia and joy never left me, new things fascinate me, i adore them just as much as i adored runescape or miniclip or the hundreds of flash games, cat vs dog, boxhead, cracking minecraft, modding minecraft, modding terraria, OLD minecraft, alpha beta, watching hundreds of youtubers letsplays, new minecraft with the deep dark, speedrunning, retro games indie games genuinely so so many things. all of this and then hearing people miss that feeling genuinely both fascinates and saddens me because this hobby, this love hasnt changed a bit and to add to this 27:00 i dont think this is very unique to our growth in gaming, when something is too easy or bland or even too difficult i switch to a new game, very 'zoomer' mentality so to speak, but i also have a maxed ironman, headhunter and a mageblood in SSF path of exile, i know of a lot of newer gamers with insane achievements like this that i would personally never stick to, greensuigi a 17 year old with all (but one) sm64 records, a 14 year old rocket league pro from the middle east, people topping the d4 leaderboards or dungeon fighter online at 18 with 1000 of hours ahead of the competition, nothing has really changed? we're not that different, we just experienced a lot of technological changes to set us apart but theres still millions of gamers with just a phone to play guardian tales on, and a pc that can barely run minimum settings. bit tired of the sentiment of it used to be tougher, were the same, theres just a whole lot more of us now so the niches are less loud. i agree with how you ended this section of the pod though, a unique reason we fell in love as we did that is rare to find elsewhere. also on the boredom bit, we tend to forget we spent countless hours at night listening to our girlfriends and groupchats on MSN complaining how theyre so bored andtheres nothing to do, when there was so SO much to do, everything was new, just like now, people with abundancy finding their way, theyll learn too, besides ive noticed the opposite happening, people starting to get overwhelmed and valueing the slower stuff more, the subway surfers and nightcore in the corner of all videos has become a self aware meme people are working to improve on, i think its peaked

[@Ferdawoon]

@36:30 or so - About "coping" with being bored. Wasn't there the classic psychological experiment where they put people in an empty room with just a chair and a buzzer. Eventually people would rather start giving themselves electrical shocks from the little gadget than sit there and do nothing.

[@Mognet_t]

I think it is worth noting that there is still some buildup and anticipation still found in gaming, if only in the download and day 1 patches/installs. It's a pretty big meme that any AAA game comes with hours-long day 1 installs. Moreso, many are 100gb in size, and installed on hard drives that usually max out at 1tb, leading to kids having to decide "Is it worth deleting this old game to play this new one?" So there are a few collective struggles out there that kids still face in gaming.

[@ZombieKitty321]

I like the point of not wanting your kid to be this way but there going too experience it else where anyways, an example is when i was in highschool i knew tons of kids whos parents never got them a phone till they were older, and honestly all i saw was them being jealous at the fact they didn't have one or pissed off that they were not in the loop like their friends who were texting all the time were, and when they did get there phones, they were the most addicted too it, because they spent years watching everyone else wishing it was them. parents kinda miss that sometime.

[@lodunost]

4:27 Josh was the type of guy that would gas the whole room as you were taking turns with the controller. Orange juice and some bargain bin burrito. Bro must have been laying down them scorchers.

[@MsBellaGames]

OMG, I could barely breathe for a couple of minutes after reading that. Thanks for the fit of laughter!

[@lodunost]

@@MsBellaGames As soon as he told that story. I had a flashback. Sitting in my friends house eating junk and then you have that one motherlicker drinking orange juice on top of HOT ramen and snacking on beef Jerky. Like I will never forget how much torture it was. What's worse we had 2 girls in our groups. They would sneak them out. Detonate the silent nukes. They were always worse somehow. Always pass the blame. Lod remembers the dark times...

[@ednoisedem]

We play for 3 days Heroes of might and magic with my father not knowing how to put our monsters from castle to our hero. So we buy new heroes and fight battles, die, buy new with same weak army till eventually heroes comes with not army at all and NPC enemy comes to destroy us. And I show my father a picture in video game magazine where the hero army was with monster from castle and I told him - there must be a way to use them. 3 days ...

[@jessisthejessis1823]

its so funny how josh stands out as a speaker among the group

[@richardtasden4417]

It is probably talked about before they start. Someone has priority.

[@RStarrzky]

And also Josh is a former teacher. He is just a great talker even without script.

[@vvillhelmzecheekclapper7984]

A cactus was the emergency if Josh cancelled.

[@deaconlasagna8570]

i was really depressed awhile ago. I wasn't enjoying playing any games, but as i uninstalled and reinstalled, i realized that the act of waiting for a game to install was giving me nostalgic dopamine hits. So i spent the whole night just installing games, then immediately uninstalling. it was weird but it got me through.

[@Arkholt2]

In a way, I feel like what's being said here is "We played games as kids that weren't really satisfying experiences because we didn't have any other choices, and we told ourselves that we enjoyed it because we had nothing else to compare it to." Having nostalgia for a time in your life when you had to struggle to play a game is one thing, but thinking that younger generations should also have those experiences is a completely different thing. I grew up in the 90s, so I also remember the struggle, but I've never wished to actually go back to that time. Having to play a game for 50 hours before it gets good is ridiculous. Having to basically hack your computer just to get a game to run is ridiculous. Having to wait for a day for a game to install is ridiculous. Having to know how to repair your game console hardware yourself because it breaks within a year of you buying it is ridiculous. No one should have to deal with these things. All of those things should go away, and the barriers to playing games should come down more and more. The more this happens, the more we can focus on the actual games, and how good or bad they are, and the less we will settle for bad quality games that cost too much of our time and money to play.

[@michaelh.1484]

I was actually having this type of conversation the other day. One of the things I feel bad for kids these days is they don't have that same couch co-op experience we had back in the day. Not to say those games don't exist, but back then the internet was not what it is today. Like you had DSL you were a giga chad; dial-up someone called and knocked you off the web and to reconnect you'd hear the Terminator from Skynet taking over. To play a multiplayer game you had to actually go over to someone else's house. Now a days you just log onto a server. Sure there's VOIP but the comparison is a digital card game versus a physical one. The digital just cannot create that same experience as actually physically sitting across the table from someone chatting and playing.

[@archeryguy1701]

I think a big factor is that MMORPG's major gameplay loop is just grinding activities over and over again. You may have some stuff to get through before it gets grindy, or sometimes it starts grindy, but at some point, MMO's reach the point where the goal is to be doing the same stuff over and over again. Maybe it's trying to get better loot drops, maybe it's for achievements or tasks that require, "Kill 10,000 x to get y," or maybe it's simply because that's what the game is reduced to and continuing to play means just doing stuff on repeat. And I've found for me, at 34, I have a hard time justifying it or having it keep my interest. I have so many other experiences that I could be having, why am I going to stay here and keep doing this thing repeatedly? My buddy and I have a hard time finding games to play together long term, and a big part of it is because a lot of the games we have to choose from end up becoming endless treadmills to nowhere, and I get bored with it (and I think this is a different type of bored from what Josh is talking about). More and more, I find that I want my games to have definitive goals and endpoints to work towards. And when I hit that endpoint, I can move on. Maybe that means starting the game over, or maybe that means finding something else to do. But I just don't have it in me to pick up a game without an end and repeat the same tasks/fights/etc endlessly just for the sake of playing that game.

[@Sekhatt]

I feel you on the repetitiveness. I don't mind the idea of a game with no end. But the amount of content that would need to be made to stop it devolving into repeating content for months at a time would be infeasible.

[@lithrandil290]

I think the phenomenon explains the rise of challenge runs recently. Artificially limiting yourself to have a long term more fulfilling time. For example I had a ton of enjoyment from running the souls games on at level 1. And it's hilarious how much fun the Apostate Cleric (holy damage only, no leveling faith) run in ER is as well.

[@soulhelper7027]

On the difficulty thing, I think it's more "how many hooks have they sunk in", if they've had a good challenge before hitting a wall, they'll stick because the challenge is fun, but if the wall is the first thing they hit, the only thing they hit, or if it's so sudden that it shocks them out of it, then they drop

[@night1952]

I have no nostalgia for old hardware slowing things down, anticipation during gameplay is one thing but a game taking a long time to install is not a good experience.

[@brutalnapkin1055]

Josh talking about putting the effort in reminds me of when my dad took my brother and I to Gamestop to buy physical copies of Starcraft 2. Our dad played old pc games and got us into Quake 2 and Starcraft. When SC2 came out he took us to the store and bought copies so we could play the new Starcraft together. The ride home and wait to install made it all that much better.

[@theNightDice]

I think the "jump in, jump out" thing is one part that makes Guild Wars 2 and other MMOs with horizontal progression a (theoretically) better fit for main stream gamers. Because the game doesn't punish you for missing a couple of patches. Guild Wars 2 in particular also has events that last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, with boss trains taking even longer by doing different events in a row, so you can basically tailor it to the time you have available. The issues being that a) it is still an MMORPG and so if you don't have friends already playing or are not a social player, you will not have as easy of a time enjoying it and b) horizontal progression can leave people feeling lost what to do. You won't have that steady flow of new gear to grind for, so you'll have to find your own goals and make your own fun. Lastly c) people can have difficulty returning if they feel like they need to play through all the new content, because it can be overwhelming if you took a longer break.

[@XBluDiamondX]

I find the comments regarding kids nowadays able to jump from one game to the next in an instant interesting. Now, when you say kids, I'm assuming children and teens still living with parents. Reason I find this interesting is because in my mind I'm thinking, "How are these kids able to get their hands on all these games?" You mentioned lack of choice back in the day, but I personally didn't have parents who could afford to buy me all the crap I wanted as a kid. If I was in the same situation today as a kid, I wouldn't be able to play everything. This is the reason I never got to play MMOs. I couldn't pay a subscription fee. Not even close lol. The only difference would be the accessibility of F2P games, but I'm not even sure if I could enjoy those (not very many I enjoy).

[@Sekhatt]

There are *alot* of free to play games these days. They aren't likely jumping from AAA $70 blockbuster to another. They are jumping from free to play game to free to play game, with the occasional paid for game in there that they got from pocket money, or presents. (In the general case). That said, if they have a parent that likes video games, well, there's going to be a lot more video games in the house too, so in that case maybe it is AAA game to AAA game. And then in a even lesser case, it'll be the rich parent spoiling their child.

[@Matthordika]

Being able to live with boredom can be a real gift. Long car ride ahead? Sweet, I can stare out the window for a few hours. Arrived early to a meeting? Great, time to do nothing. I like to take walks, and I used to have to have music on. But now, the music is in the way, I'll enjoy that later when I get home and dedicate myself to just listening.

[@kaisokusekkendou1498]

What's kind of neat is that my kids are still going through something like that struggle. Our TV setup is such that we have more consoles than we do ports, so there's fiddling with cables and poweribg devices, getting a controller that works AND is charged, etc. And they love to play modded games, like Minecraft or whatnot. Talking with friends who foubd something neat, or through a youtube video or site, and then trying to download it and install the right combination, separate tools like reshade and grtting those settings right... We had to move the install go the m.2 hard drive so the game would run fast enough to play properly, but that's a smaller drive so the unending mods make it so we have space issues, a d we have to juggle stuff so we can regain enough pagefile memory, lol. It's no wonder Minecraft and such games are their consistent go-to games, since there is so much more experience built up around them. **Added As a parent, I didn't want to completely protect them from technology (I've seen others do that, and the kids are very insulated behaviors). I have boundries (online is limited until teenager, etc), but more importantly, I make sure the kids have to try and get what they want on their own. Cabling, inputs, charging cables, finding a mod or download, etc, etc. I'll give pointers and sometimes have to take over if it will be very tough or risky, etc. I realize now, this is sort of like the current era's version of "playing ball with my kids". Getting the video game to work, the bavk and forth of it, and then maybe even play the game a little together or see if it works or help with a hard part in a platformer so they understand how its done... We still want that experience, and kids will still seek them out, they just take on new forms in this new environment.

[@DoingFavors]

"Say phenomenology one more GODDAMN time!"

[@ToastyFruitcake]

Installing games with many discs was a whole event haha, I remember it fondly but everything is just so busy now to enjoy anything like that sadly.

[@TomJakobW]

Sims 2 had 4 CDs; then one for every add-on. This took an entire day to install, until they released the gold edition or what it’s called. I still remember watching tv while installing, reading some magazine. Man, there was this whole full-time-effort just to get things working element to gaming 😅 How often did I have to install this program, or edit that ini or do crazy stuff just to get things to work back then! I sat entire days on my Pc just browsing forums for tips on what this weird critical error means and how I can fix it and oh of course I have to unplug my headset because Microsoft bugs out on a certain process so it doesn’t start the game; or coooourse. I didn’t have to do this sort of stuff for at least a decade. I really noticed that when I installed old games again on my older PC.

[@mikfhan]

First day of playing Diablo 2 was NOT playing Diablo 2 :D we went outside and played football, then changed CDs then something else. /PLAYERS 8 ipx LAN party!

[@nauscakes1868]

I'm really torn on challenging games. For example, in an MMO -- I loathe the idea of button bloat, or having a complex rotation for the sake of it being complex. A challenging rotation is never fun for me. It's purely annoying. For an MMO, I don't want a challenging rotation, I want a more challenging boss encounter. But even then, my most enjoyable MMO moments are playing with friends. The social experience. I just want group content that's too challenging to solo, but easy with a team. Treasure Maps in FFXIV are one of my favorite group experiences. Because you can load up your group with more members than you need. The content is designed for 4 players, but you can bring 8 in. And just share the loot between everyone. I often ran it and just passed on the loot, because I enjoyed being with friends. ---------- The opposite of my MMO experience is that I sometimes really do enjoy a challenge IF the gameplay loop is fun. MMO rotations are not fun. But with a game like Hitman or Red Alert. There's a lot of pure strategy involved that's not simply pressing your buttons really fast. I've actually been a much greater Red Alert/Command and Conquer fan over Star Craft, because I enjoyed the bigger picture strat. It's not about micro-managing units like in Starcraft, but instead it's about map control and resource management. You're not 'capped' at 200 food, and have to micromanage against an enemy with an equal army. If you want, you can choose to dominate the map, suck up resources and just make 2,000 tanks and steamroll them. And in games like Hitman, you're not stressfully hitting buttons in a timed fashion. You can play an incredibly challenging Hitman experience at the hardest difficulty, and never feel rushed. I like challenging games where the challenge is plotting it out. And being methodical. I don't like challenging games where the challenge is "how well can you manage a 24 button combat rotation under pressure of boss mechanics. " Ironically, I was ALWAYS that person on raid night who showed up with all my food, potions, buffs. Gear gemmed and enchanted. I loved prep work, because I could be more effective, without feeling rushed about it. That's not to say I'm against rushing all the time. I can enjoy a time sensitive boss fight where you really do have to know your rotation and play the mechanics appropriately. But I also really like the idea where my effectiveness was equally tied to my ability to prepare for the encounter and not just flying by the seat of my pants. I haven't played the new classic, but I did like the idea where part of moving to Aq40 or Naxx was getting resistant gear. And having good gear from previous raids. There's a lot of prep to it. Prep is effort. That's a skill, right?

[@Hirens.]

Exceptional discussion! Keep up the good work guys! I'm 28, I resonated with a lot of what you said.

[@lost1head]

You guys are missing the fact how lucky you were to have that kind of childhood. I remember being bullied for playing WoW because "only an idiot would spend money on a video game". Games werent as "cool" back in the 90s and 2000s and they were way less accessible. Most adults believed playing too much would literally make you go blind. My dad didn't want to buy me me a console cause "consoles are for dumb American kids" but I at least had a PC. Other kids' parents usually couldn't afford either. If you were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where you could talk about Pokemon or Runescape to your classmates I'm happy for you and I do believe you had amazing childhood but please keep in mind it's not the case for everyone. For all its flaws modern gaming made video games way more accessible and acceptable.

[@mauree1618]

I miss that mystery in games, especially for MMOs, datamining, minmaxing, metas, just ruin the fun of figuring it out on your own with your group.

[@CalliKira]

Tbh, Guild Wars 2 does fill that "let me pop in for some quick fun with random players" for me. World Boss trains and group metas are wonderful for that.

[@m3m3sis]

I still try to emulate the anticipation and all the other routines leading up to the gaming friday and or saturday down to the visit to a candy store and sauna and whatnot. All the childhood comforts.

[@quincykunz3481]

I think that this topic of the value of struggle is both really important and yet also really stupid. There IS great value in overcoming hardship and delayed gratification and all the little annoyances you don't appreciate until later... but I think we'll naturally find those struggles almost no matter what. Centuries ago adults were worried that books would lead kids to be lazy because they didn't need to experience something firsthand to know about it. Then book-loving adults decried the mind-rotting potential of the television delivering you experiences without reading. Then video games were demonized for making kids lazy. Then MMOs were lambasted for the reward loop they make with the intense effort of clicking buttons. Now MMO playing adults worry that the next generation won't find any struggle without MMOs. You honestly think the rising generation won't have real struggles? REALLY? Because they are currently gearing up to wrestle with challenges we would run screaming from. The lesson is true, but the idea that it will be lost with time I think is (mostly) unfounded.

[@Algathar]

I remember sitting on the school bus with my friend who got off the bus 20 minutes from me. We played RuneScape together, sometimes without skype and just used the ingame chat. Anyway...at that time it was nerdy to play RS, so we came up with a secret code to plan a session. It was in Icelandic, but the translated version would be R.S.W.Y.G.H. basically an acronym for the sentence RuneScape When You Get Home? I can still remember that acronym, almost 2 decades later

[@nintenx1235]

Honestly playing horror games helps with my anxiety. Same with any anxiety inducing part in a game. Same with my depression and extremely dark material like Berserk, or Drakengard/NieR. These are pieces of fiction that give you a place that isn't real but can feel real to get used to and experience these emotions.

[@cozymonk]

People growing up without being able to learn how to deal with challenges is the origin of anxiety.

[@iller3]

It's the same as growing up in the most sterile house in town, and having never developed any natural resistances to Bacteria

[@WeisseningBlitz]

Being 40 now, I think one of the most important factors I look into with a game is if it respects the player's time. Inevitably, this translates into understanding that forcing exponential content repetition akin to the grind isn't really where it's at, but in discourse like this, I find defenders of this style swing the pendulum all the way back to accusations of instant gratification or wanting things handed to them. For me, I can't say that's the case. Content cycle for me has that moment of initial exposure, figuring it out, and ideally mastering it within a few runs. If it's something I can actually solo, great. Peer pressure isn't there and if a fail happens I know it's my fault. Shifting this to party play introduces its own variables, where one run can be butter smooth while another you're just smashing your face with your keyboard because no one else seems to be understanding the obvious. Those latter experiences happening more than I'd personally prefer is honestly one of the reasons why I advocated a good MMO nowadays actually needs to be a stellar single-player game first. This sentiment obviously triggers certain MMO enthusiasts, but this also comes back to properly designing your challenges, rewards, and yes, respecting the player's time. The moment where Everquest was called the world's prettiest chatroom kinda made me chuckle as while it's incredibly reductionist, I also feel like that spirit has been lost with MMOs more or less pursuing a particular niche as a raider game, PvP game, or some horrible mish-mash of the two. I see people nowadays complaining that FFXIV has basically become modern day Second Life, realizing that while their opinion is overblown and likely rooted in hate of people finding fun they don't like, FFXIV has actually done very little to cater to these individuals. The housing system is highly limited and borderline atrocious. Same applies to the glamour system. There's no tangible character progress to RPing. Attempting to carry that over to actual combat will get you blasted because it runs counter to the twitchy rotation-based do the dance play. From my perspective, the first MMO to turn around and embrace the RPers is going to be the figurative breakthrough and breath of fresh air the genre needs because in order to nurture individual character identity, you actually have to take the time to construct your mechanical systems around that process, too. This means less obsession with balance, consideration of scenarios where you may be MVP in one instance and completely dead weight in another, encouragement to expand your skill set and experiment without class rigidity, and ideally let players be an actual influence in the world, its shaping, or lack thereof. Does this lend itself to narratives akin to FFXIV or WoW? Not really, but the point is "the story" should be the player experience to cultivate that investment. And for some folks, the glory is found by making useful items others want and not so much clicking the dragon. To run with Josh's like of phenomenology, I figure it's the difference between roll-playing and role-playing. The former is ultimately where most MMOs have fallen, which to me makes calling them pretty chat rooms somewhat ironic since they're also... not. Chasing tangible reward has been baked so prominently into MMO DNA that even trying to chat in a PUG is viewed as a detriment to efficiency. Of course, I also don't want to go back to the days of FFXI where you could be LFG for hours on end because you're not a popular job, and thus no progress, which takes me back to the affirmation that the solo experience also needs to exist and not be emphatically second rate or worse. The idea of a game taking 40 hours to get good also sounds like another way of saying the game begins at endgame. Expressing this sentiment to someone not in the know who doesn't dismiss it outright is going to have some justifiable follow-up questions like what exactly the good part is and what was even going on in the 40 hours prior. To veer to my initial point, this risks sounding like a disrespect of the player's time, as it's possible that 40 hours is jacked with fluff and non-content as opposed to what we should assume is training them for the eventual good stuff. Or more crassly, it may be a raider's way of saying, "Yeah, I hate leveling and wish I could just skip story content..." which isn't the best look, either, and reinforces points of my second paragraph since if you're someone who's not in a rush to click dragons, you're probably looking at subpar content and eventual disappointment when the so-called good part isn't for you regardless of whether or not more modern matchmaking systems have simplified the process. And in my experience, the voraciously hardcore constantly demanding more raids, more treadmills, more difficulty, and by extension more exclusivity are both never satisfied and essentially advocating for the self-cannibalization of MMOs because you're only going to have a niche subset of legitimately fresh blood who'd be into that when others will just be like, "Nah, I don't want the next 3 months of my game life mapped out for me and time gated. I'm gonna play something else." And I'd posit this isn't because they're chasing instant gratification. Rather, they're recognizing abuse and the conditioning a lot of these systems hope to run with. The FOMO is real and the complete lack of "make up rewards" for missed dailies, weeklies, or the rare monthlies in whatever form they take just reinforces this. And for some of us, it's just there was a lack of choice in the yesteryear relative to games out there, but also a better personal understanding of what works and doesn't as there have been steps in MMO evolution since EQ or RS. The fact nostalgia grabs some folks by the balls like it does can be pretty disheartening when trying to discuss the pros and cons of older games and how later titles addressed things.

[@Jax_Destro]

I lived 30 min drive from the nearest store that sold games. Once a month, we would go to Walmart to get groceries, and my mom would sometimes buy me a game. The anticipation of getting home and popping it in and playing. Pulling out the game manual and reading it front to back on the drive home. It was great.

[@elixxon]

"these influencers don't influence kids that much" If you play any games nowadays that's popular with kids like the two mainstream Hoyoverse games Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail for example(free to play, not paywalled and can be ran even on "mom's" old smartphone or laptop) you'll notice that whenever a super clickbait video pops up "discussing" a very aggravating and obviously to anyone who aren't literally 14 and a complete noob false topic or narrative, angry kids flood popular social media platforms from Reddit through discord communities to 4chan to rage and have a flamewar about it. Hell whenever something extremely stupid gets spammed by the horde of enraged children out of the blue there will be clips of it's origin to pop up in your recommendeds eventually if the game is in your KZbin algorithm, where a popular "educational meta and minmaxing" streamer is doing something wrong on purpose while acting like the character/mechanic is broken so "the character is bad and you should be angry about it and make a scene to teach Hoyoverse a lesson", or "the game is broken and the fight is just undoable conventionally, which is such a cheap way to force you to use the useless healers and shield supports". It's obvious for anyone with actual knowledge of the game's basics that the streamer is acting stupid on purpose being literally a day1 player and theorycrafter, but all the starry eyed youngns believe every word of their gaming internet idol without question. Not only do kids get greatly influenced by influencers, but they are being actively weaponized by them.

[@Shmandalf]

Ask any kid what they wanna be when they grow up and most of them will say youtuber or influencer. Like they literally all want to do youtube because influencers make it look like a dream job thats easy and they 'get to play games all day.' Reality will hit most of them pretty hard when they realize that there is so much competition now that in most cases its not even worth the effort, especially when the algorithm actively keeps you down. You're also typically working more than 8 hours a day, I was putting in 12s-15s without any days off when I was trying to make it a few years ago, and only maybe 2 hours of that was actually playing a game (editing, rendering and uploading takes up most of your time).

[@MJR_heyfunny]

You're definitely right about although I would have to say personally until I got older and was able to afford a gaming habit myself before I could really properly get into it and that's when I really started to understand how much gaming was important to me. These days I have well over 2000 games on Steam and two different high-speed internet connections just to make sure my experience is not painful. Well that and I don't really play AAA games with greedy as hell Ceo's and investors

[@Liur.]

The idea of the "anticipation" being a necessary component for a fun game stems from older games _requiring_ that waiting. If a modern game feels hollow it's not necessarily due to it's substance, it's how your brain interprets fun.