The changes keep coming. How has gaming changed during your years playing?

I’m an ancient being, so I can understand that you may be expecting me to discuss how I played tic tac toe on my abacus or something, but for me I only really became a gamer when I first saw Baldur’s Gate — the original one. I played various computer games before BG, but that game was the one that really changed me. Before, I was a dilettante who mostly played games like Fallout or Diablo in between D&D or The Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying Game campaigns I mostly DM’d.

Now, from 1999 to 2024 is a quarter century and games have changed a lot since then. In that time, I went from playing entirely single player games to exploring limited multiplayer games like Neverwinter Nights and their muliplayer persistent servers created by and for players, and then in 2004 a little game called World of Warcraft caught my eye and I started playing that. I know, I know, a bit flash in the pan but still.

Over my years playing games I’ve seen several companies devoured by other, larger companies. I’ve seen the rise and fall of game genres, with some games enduring and becoming influential — I mean, there was a time before I ever heard the phrases Soulslike or Soulsborne used to define a genre of game, much less roguelite. Heck, when I was starting out the acronym CRPG meant a very specific thing. The acronym stands for computer role playing game, but today it means a whole lot of things depending on who is using it. I’ve seen the C mean classic, console, complex and one time it meant Christian and wow that game was weird.

So now, as we live in a gaming world with engagement numbers and live service gameplay, I ask y’all what the heck is going on in gaming? What change has been the biggest during your time as one of us?

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