Theres something about comparing gamers of the past to the ones now. They used to look so much brighter, happier, optimistic for their hobby.

>>715874225 (OP)
We were. My friends and I still are but we are also like 40 and grew up gaming in-person playing on a single tv.

COOL STORY BRO

It feels like everyones spirits died sometime between 2005 and 2014 and I cant pinpoint the reasons why. 9/11 wasnt the main cause but some other factors.

>>715874521
It's social media and online gaming. No one plays irl anymore and that's depressing.

i think people in general were just more happy period outside of gaming. not just happier but more at peace as well. mass adoption of the internet has just made people more hostile/standoffish/worse at interacting/paranoid. shit got fucked up in too many ways since then. yeah sure games were better in the past too but thats just one other layer to it. of course "gamers" seemed happier back then.

people also point out that people in the 90s-mid 2000s were pretty optimistic about the future so it wasnt even just that things were good then most people had a vague sense that things were just improving over time and that the future would be even better. not sure what the average person thought 2025 would be like but im sure its not whatever the fuck this is. we got most of the disadvantages of a dystopian tech future with almost none of the positives.

>>715874521
turns out that when the instant transmission of data from across the globe becomes easily accessible for nearly everyone, it has a massive effect on people's mental health. its almost as if our fragile ape brains weren't meant to be constantly inundated by media that fearmongers and doomposts 24/7.

>>715874521
Smartphones, social media, and more of the world gaining access to the internet.
We went from the golden rule of don't put yourself on the internet, to putting our entire lives on the internet. From something that we could only access from a computer, to being able to access near constantly from just about anywhere. No longer is it a separate place for escapism when the rest of the world is on there too. No longer balancing a real social life with an online persona.
There is no longer a divide, life, the world and the internet have intertwined into one.

>>715874225 (OP)
MUH REALISM happened.

>>715874225 (OP)
yes

>>715874225 (OP)
yes

>>715874521
>cant pinpoint the reasons why
In gaming that's pretty fucking easy. Games have been rapidly technologically improving up until 2008 and then just sort of stopped

>>715874521
i destroyed the seal of solomon a year or so ago
don't worry about it

>>715879057
Did it not occur to you the seal was there for a reason?

>>715874225 (OP)
Three generations of stagnation will do that.

Forced humiliation ritual

>>715874521
jews, faggots and niggers

>>715874225 (OP)
Zillenial born in 2002 here. 2005 to 2011 was the golden era, I don't know if it was the end of the world prediction, Obama winning reelection or Mass Effect 3 ending, but something changed in 2012.