I think for me it's retro games, specifically. I used to have been in the used video games market for 5 years from 2008 to 2012. My goal was to construct a personal video game collection, physical copies of games I personally enjoyed growing up.
I was registered on a game trading site which served as the base of my business, I've made rounds of thrift store hopping and any used games market I could find locally. I've struck amazingly good deals and I might've had luck on my side a few times (for example, a guy on that game trading site gave me a free copy of Super Metroid that I got to choose for a minor mistake he felt he needed to honor.)
And I felt like I was incredibly close to completing my personal collection until 2012, I ran into some dumb drama with my sister and ex girlfriend back then. They racked up the cable bill in my name that I was trying to cancel and they wouldn't let me cancel it until I turned in all equipment. And I was jobless at the time too, having lost my job. So I needed to sell some things and sure enough, had to sacrifice my entire collection at the time that I spent 5 long years building.
I never recovered since and this was during the golden period where it was still fairly fun to collect and everybody wasn't pretending to be a pawn shop.
I would try continuing what collection of games I've tried to build, through Steam but it wasn't the same. Nowadays, the used video games market has turned into just a platform full of resellers, pawn brokers and stingy greedy collectors.
I find it very cheapening that people treat games like they're just tools of trade. They mean nothing and they're treated like nothing except to make a quick buck, however possible.
It's only worsened thanks to Goodwill and similar thrift stores, getting in on it where everyone pays too much attention as to what the prices go for on EBay and VGPC.
And we have WATA involved that hasn't made things better. Thanks for shitting on an honest hobby, assholes.
If I'm honest, video games and computers in general. The community has some to do with it, I guess, but more because the people making them just seem to not care about the customers at all anymore.
If I had to put my feeling into words, its that they try to make things at the smallest possible cost with the highest return possible, including throwing ads into everything (making for a poorer experience for the users), while simultaneously making everything bland so they can appeal to everyone.
Ten years ago, I loved video games, and now the only "next-gen" console I have is a Switch and a Steam Deck. I used to be a huge Windows fan, but now I can hardly stomach Windows 11, and run Linux exclusively as much as possible.
Big tech ruined tech. Big video games ruined video games.
I feel this. I grew up in the '90s so tech was totally my thing. I couldn't find work in my chosen field (journalism, graduated in 2008... yeah) so I reschooled myself to sysadmin. At the start I was so excited to learn all the tech stacks and possibilities.
Nowadays, it's just an endless queue of tickets with Microsoft Azure, AWS or Fujitsu. You don't actually own any of your infrastructure, and in case of serious disaster your hands are practically tied. Every "new" feature that comes out is more hassle and problems than it ever solves, and every single fucking security update breaks something, somewhere.
All in all, I'm ready to turn in my cellphone, pc and laptop and go live in a forest, happy if I never have to touch anything electronic ever again.
I went to college for cell animation when computers started taking over. I feel your pain.
I enjoy video games, but it's maybe two or three games a year I really enjoy and play the hell out of. Days Gone and BG3 are the only ones I've enjoyed since Jedi: Survivor. I've played the hell out of DG because when I didn't have anything else to do I'd just replay it again. I thought the writing and acting was really good and it's almost like rewatching a favorite movie.
I did finally pick up GTA5 (I often buy older games that were well received but I didn't have interest in paying full price when they came out) and it's good, but it hasn't gripped me and I've just kinda stopped playing. Currently I just spend that time scrolling my phone. I don't think there are any games on my radar I'm interested in buying in the future. But that's fine I don't want to anticipate a game and be disappointed.
There's some new Star Wars game coming out and I fucking love Star Wars, but they said the word DLC and I'm already not interested. If a game requires PS+, I already know I won't like it—a lesson leaned from Diablo 4, which I really wanted to love but really don't.
I also only have Linux. My last windows system got left out in the rain on my deck and that was that. But that's okay because I love to tinker and play with stuff and Linux is great for personal dev projects.
I'm getting back into games after a long time off and I have zero interest in AAA games. Why do single player or local co-op games have the rootkits? I'll just enjoy smaller indie titles, there are a lot of great options out there.