I never ditched online gaming. Online gaming ditched me.
They killed community servers. In the rare cases you can get a community server, you have to pay for the pleasure of renting one monthly, instead of it just being a headless machine at your home that you could set up with software that came on the game disc. Then in some games, you have to be vetted to be a good boy on a server you are paying for, and abide by their rules, or some easily offended jerk can get your server rights revoked.
They're chasing the perpetually online GAAS treadmill style of game, and have an in game shop to help cut down on the amount of time it gets to get [X] while doing everything in their power to make playing the game obnoxious until you pay.
Phone games had this market cornered so I'm told, and now it's infecting real games.
This isn't even getting into the fact that the people who used to make the games I love are now old enough to retire, and have. So there's no reason for me to even consider a new game unless a bunch of friends are playing it. My steam wish list has a bunch of older titles and indie titles in it to remind me about their release, so I can watch and wait to make sure DEI and censorship didn't kill it for the modern audience.
Very few games made in the last 5 years are drop in drop out co-op like Saints Row 3 and 4, for example. That is the exact thing I am looking for, and aside from a group of indie games, you just can't find that.
That's why I like steam so much. It has been an absolute godsend with remote play. I can get a game for a few bucks, or a friend can, and we can play together, even if we're across country. It might not be couch co-op, but it's as close as internet play together can be.
I never ditched online gaming. Online gaming ditched me.
They killed community servers. In the rare cases you can get a community server, you have to pay for the pleasure of renting one monthly, instead of it just being a headless machine at your home that you could set up with software that came on the game disc. Then in some games, you have to be vetted to be a good boy on a server you are paying for, and abide by their rules, or some easily offended jerk can get your server rights revoked.
They're chasing the perpetually online GAAS treadmill style of game, and have an in game shop to help cut down on the amount of time it gets to get [X] while doing everything in their power to make playing the game obnoxious until you pay.
Phone games had this market cornered so I'm told, and now it's infecting real games.
This isn't even getting into the fact that the people who used to make the games I love are now old enough to retire, and have. So there's no reason for me to even consider a new game unless a bunch of friends are playing it. My steam wish list has a bunch of older titles and indie titles in it to remind me about their release, so I can watch and wait to make sure DEI and censorship didn't kill it for the modern audience.
Very few games made in the last 5 years are drop in drop out co-op like Saints Row 3 and 4, for example. That is the exact thing I am looking for, and aside from a group of indie games, you just can't find that.
That's why I like steam so much. It has been an absolute godsend with remote play. I can get a game for a few bucks, or a friend can, and we can play together, even if we're across country. It might not be couch co-op, but it's as close as internet play together can be.