It comes down to identity. Games used to be a fairly niche thing way back during the times you describe, and only really got into the mainstream in the mid-2000's. That popularity comes with a price, though, and that price is that anyone who makes it a hobby wants to stand out in it. They make it part of themselves.

People keep asking why this is a thing (others judging how someone plays a game, especially a single player one), and I think the main reason is pretty simple:

It’s because these guys keep trying to find new and backbreaking ways to gatekeep against perceived “fake” gamers.

I literally just wrote this article to say “Hey, you can take a break from that game that is frustrating you or making you feel bad.”

Buying a game on launch day isn’t a “right”. He can simply wait.

Hey Zach, that’s really been working well for me tbh. It took me a while to learn that I don’t need to play games the nanosecond they come out. But once I did learn it, I haven’t really looked back. And with a backlog as large as mine, there’s always something to play!

If you feel like games are cheaper and better a year later, maybe stop buying them the day they come out?

I can only hope you’re being totally sincere. 🙄

Probably easier to just not type anything that way you could of saved everyone from reading this comment

I’m happy to hear I helped! Thanks for reading!! 

But how do you really feel?

I also remember the good ol’ days when you slapped a cartridge into a system and were greeted with the pixel equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting so you took the cartridge back out, blew on it even though that supposedly doesn’t work but it usually does. But if it didn’t then you tried cleaning it off with your shi…

The lengthening list of behaviors that you have to practice in order to avoid paying too much for a game that you may not want:

...

Whatever

If their partners are going to bitch about interrupted marketing plans in the face of a 6.7 earthquake, then their partners can go fuck themselves.

Everyone knows Spartans can only achieve sexual arousal and climax by teabagging the fallen bodies of the opposite team.

hes never stopped being good.

I think Kellam is in the game, too.

You could say the same about Nintendo, except they actually allow cross-play.