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1. Andrew (Television Executive) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jul-2024 15:34:06 JST Andrew (Television Executive)

   Alright, I've owned a modern game console for about 24 hours and I have thoughts.

   • Andrew (Television Executive) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jul-2024 15:34:03 JST Andrew (Television Executive)

     in reply to

     So we're talking like 2008/2009. Lots of things happened in the world and in my life around that time.

     I started working full time for the first time in my life. I bought a house.

     But also, the 7th generation of game consoles was in full swing. People stopped making games for the ps2 and the rest of the consoles of that era.

     The global economy went in to a freefall.

     I nearly died in a flood.

     But also, it's not fair to say that I suddenly wasn't in to games. I had less time, but I didn't have a television subscription or home internet, and I still had a Wii and a PS2. I played SNES games. I played PS2 games. I got to know the GC and Wii catalog reasonably well. (For reasons that will become obvious later in this thread, I'm not counting Nintendo consoles as "current" for the purposes of the things I'm about to say.)

     Kuba Orlik repeated this.
   • Andrew (Television Executive) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jul-2024 15:34:03 JST Andrew (Television Executive)

     in reply to

     But, even with all of the above said, I did slowly just fall off of games. Eventually I filled my time with other stuff.

     Every 18 months or so I'd go check out the games that were coming out, and I'd try to get excited about them, but I couldn't.

     I didn't care about any of them.

     My friends were really in to a couple of PC games, but I absolutely couldn't bring myself to care about those games.

     At the time, I assumed this was a *me* thing. That I was no longer connecting with video games.

     After 24 hours owning a ps5, and a lot of self reflection, I now believe it was a *video game industry thing*.

     This will not come as a surprise to anyone who plays video games regularly, probably.

     Kuba Orlik repeated this.
   • Andrew (Television Executive) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jul-2024 15:34:04 JST Andrew (Television Executive)

     in reply to

     And then, thanks to emulation, I played most games released for the SNES. Not all of them, but probably 3/4s of them. I didn't beat nearly as many of these, but I've put a few hours in to most of them.

     I also played a lot of gameboy and GBA games. Certainly not all of them, but a lot of them. I'd suspect more than most people.

     I wrote some games. I read about games. I wrote about games.

     For a period of my life, I probably played video games like 40 hours a week. (That period of my life was from ages 6 - 19 or so.)

     I used to be really in to this shit, and then I just suddenly wasn't and I'd like to talk about that a bit before I talk about my experiences over the last few days.

   • Andrew (Television Executive) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jul-2024 15:34:05 JST Andrew (Television Executive)

     in reply to

     So, first up: Who the fuck am I and what do I know?

     I grew up with video games. I played a lot of video games. We were usually a few years behind state of the art, because everything I had was second hand, but I spent a lot of time with an NES, a SNES, a PS1 and a PS2 at a kid and teenager.

     As a teen, I got real in to microcomputer games and early home video games, so I played every atari 2600 game and spent some time writing about them, and what made them work. The majority of Atari games which can be beaten, I have beaten.

   • Andrew (Television Executive) (ajroach42@retro.social)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jul-2024 15:34:22 JST Andrew (Television Executive)

     in reply to

     Post-Halo, console games became focused on online multiplayer.

     In the ps2 era and earlier there were lots of AAA games that I was interested in (and plenty that I wasn't.)

     In the PS3 era, there were basically no AAA games I was interested in. The games my friends played were a bunch of arena shooters and MOBAs and it was all high intensity PVP or gross grindy bullshit.

     I do not enjoy these things.