>>715095920
Because the hobby didn't hate them, there wasn't stupid bullshit like a 24 hour rumormill/hype cycle around games.
>Good game come out, buy good game, enjoy good game, hope they make another but if not oh well
>Go to nidnight releases and cons, meet people you connect with, bond and make new friends.
>>715096434
A lot did because things made sense
>Game pandered to audience that paid for game
>online lobbies let everyone talk and gave you tools to mute and block rather than ban people from games
>Buy game disc, own game disc, own game, only buy again if disc breaks
>Go to con, celebrate games, listen to stories and news about games.

What made everything joyless and suck is when people started attaching their non related bullshit to a hobby it ruined cons, when games pandered to an audience they thought existed and assumed their core base were so dumb they will buy no matter what games started sucking, when the business model became losing money in order to sell other shit or collect data and sell it the industry started sucking, when venture capital started buying up everything to run it into the ground strip all profit and then declare bankruptcy to get out of paying debts and have none of the decisions fall on that firm because "company failed, not the owner company telling them what to do" it fucked everything into the dirt.