I can never stop complaining about how everything changed mainly in very bad ways. I could never understand why my grandma would turn a dvd player or computer into ridicule and I even was highly annoyed by it but now I can fully understand that feeling, maybe I'll think the same when I'm older. I'm already beginning to feel like that, getting enraged by all that mobile phone rubbish, everybody looking at whatever all these thingies are called, that really drives one crazy.
It's like everyone turning into a zombie (bad enough it isn't just a horror movie).
And about digital games, well, I do love gog but still I'm not a fan of digitalized gaming.
Back in the days when you went through a store beeing surprised to see new games which you could form your very own opinion of without beeing influenced by a thousand reviews on the internet. gosh I was happy when my mum
gifted me new floppy disks, games like commander keen, jill of the jungle or lemmings.
After all it was completely new cause there wasn't the information overload of the internet.
today you only get these beautiful boxed versions on the flea market. big boxes with big nicely designed manuals which I enthusiastically went through before playing the game +enjoying the smell of them.
posessing games on the internet can never replace the grandiose feeling of having a great collection of video games piled up in ones room in all its diversity. it's like you have never bought it, as if it wasn't yours, just an impalpable data gathering without any 'soul'.
only positive aspect about that age is that you get games, books, music cds and movies you would have possibly never heard of here in germany.
But nevertheless I will never stop missing the joy brought by strolling through stores discovering new things, getting to know games by playing additional demo versions or by reading the 'bravo screenfun' which I'm really missing a lot...and finally I'm missing to look after the right lexicon in ones bookshelf to get the needed information and ...the feeling of independence.

Not true. Very often at least new strategy games just tell you "Do this and that will happen" without explaining why and what things affect what. I want to know all the underlying factors that good and big manuals can provide you with.
It's like developers thinking "I don't need to explain to those dumb gamers how it really works".

Because there was a time that you spent 25 cents, and made a phone call.... If you made one call, it costs you 25 cents for the month.. not 50 bucks..



So that is what i miss most... Pay phones!!! oh wait this is about computer games... I miss the boxes they came in... thankfully i still have a decent box collection... Now getting all the boxes for the classics i have bought recently.. that would be something entirely!

in fact i would love to see digital sales, include the option of sending you disks, media, manuals, and boxes for those that wanted to pay extra

You spend 50 bucks on one phone call? It's time to change the provider, bro.

I miss the small selection of games to choose from.
Now there is SO many new games each week, and so much competition, seems like too many games at times.

Game manuals. On papers. Like real books. Especially Microprose's.

Actually paper, in general.

And DRM. Any drive-devastating hard-drive rewrtiting DRM system is better than this sort of permenent "renting" or re-given autorisation that becomes the normality for people nowadays.

That is : Owning things, in general.

Curation. I miss the gatekeepers of quality that helped ensure that releases were finished, solid, and worth your time. Not just games, but books, magazines, art exhibits, etc. Sure, a lot of things didn't get through the gates that perhaps should have, but part of me prefers that over the data overload that the open floodgates now present.

I also hate how digital culture strip-mines creativity. Instead of things becoming enduring works, they are fads and memes and trends with the half-life of francium-223. The incessant craving for novelty is at the root of a number of our modern problems now.

As for what I miss specifically about gaming, most of those points have been made - coverdisc demos on magazines, finding an obscure game you didn't know about or never expected to find (such as when I discovered a copy of the first Starglider at a computer show), and printed manuals.

I miss when you bought a game, installed it, and played it. No fucking around with multiple online accounts and activation servers and dead-weight external clients and "deauthorization tools" and crap like that. Of course you had code wheels and disc checks instead, but I'd rather have those. This is why I resisted digital distribution at first - before GOG came along and showed that digital doesn't have to mean shitty, and before retail versions were just online codes with extra cardboard.

That's why I like GOG so much. You buy the game, install it, and play it. The best of both digital and physical distribution, and with less bullshit than either. I wish it was that easy for every game.

Oh, also I miss comic book artists that didn't use copy-paste instead of drawing the same "immobile" person twice (and who would actually consider it embarrasingly lame). I miss them a lot.

Oh, I just remembered another one - I miss that games were more often than not finished when they were released, and that subsequent patches fixed minor errors. It seems to me that games are frequently sold in a broken state and patched over the next half year, which means that games now aren't finished till six months after you've bought them.

I also miss expansion packs.

agreed.

I think you are totally missing the point... Unless you can point me to the 25 cent plan...

Boxes and manuals. Also, going to the store pretty much meant you REALLY wanted this game and you were going to play it. Nowadays, it's all a click of a button away for pennies and I'll play it when I have the time.

If you're having only one conversation a month, you don't need a phone.

Try using Skype with pre-paid. You load as many funds as you want, and you can call just like with regular phone.

By the way, there are cellphone plans here that would suit you if there are similar ones in your area

1) no matter how much you load your account, it's extended by one year (for example, you load $5 and your account is extended by one year) You can use entire amount to talk / text / whatever.

2) you pay monthly just as much as you use your phone, but no more than X dollars. The minimal monthly fee is 3 dollars, maximum 20 dollars. If you talk more than 20 dollars, you will not pay more than that anyway.

Manuals.

The add-ons in the box. Prime example: the docs that come with the box version of Crusader: No Regret. But also physical maps and quick-ref guides.

Basically, I miss getting in one package everything needed to play the game. They added flavor and convenience that you can't make up for with a PDF or in-game walkthroughs of obscure commands.