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You know.... unironically yes, but only because I feel like the ground shifted from underneath my feet. I mean, minus the mobile gaming thing but let me explain.
I think nearly all gaming up until mobile gaming and esports would be considered casual to modern sensibilities. There were no global rankings for Quake, you might even play only the single player game and never venture online with QuakeWorld! You might only play custom maps for StarCraft or WarCraft III. Did StarCraft even have a global ranking system or did that not start until StarCraft II? Jagged Alliance IMHO is hardcore as fuck, but it's also largely a sandbox for fucking around and beating it at all represents a substantial achievement.
None of these games have the sort of cutthroat competition a global ranking system introduces, nor the sort of metagame progression or constant attaboys of unlockables, achievements or cosmetics that mediocre modern games might shower you with to try to keep you around. They aren't super sweaty, and you can probably see everything they have to offer in terms of novelty in about 10-20 hours.
And yet, the moment to moment gameplay of them is so fun, I return to them over and over and over again. I don't need a global ranking, achievements, or loot crates to make Quake 3 on a LAN just as fun as it ever was in 2000. Or playing through the StarCraft campaign again. Or firing up Jagged Alliance for the first time a few years ago. They were made fun for fun's sake. And that, unironically, seems to code as "casual" now.
The release of Halo Infinite made me realise I was old and out of touch
A halo game comes out, it's pretty good, some networking issues but as far as triple A shitshow releases go, it was pretty smooth. IT WAS ALSO FREE.
The entire Halo Reddit community was fucking losing their shit about the lack of cosmetics, challenges, and unlockables. They were barely discussing the game, the balance, the maps, the things that make the game fun.
No, they were just endlessly bitching about the lack of armor cosmetics. You can't even fucking see your armor when you're playing.
Fortnite broke the kids man, they've lost sight of what makes a game good
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