I've never been able to put my thumb on it, and I just chalked it up to me being older now, but I'm not a big fan of a lot of games. And this video opened the curtains as to why. Just so much hand holding and noise.
Title screen video gives a vague story. Game starts. No dialog. No text. Just ... clicking and discovering the rest of the story.
But also yes, I did enjoy Myst. It's also what I enjoyed about Minecraft when it first came out. You just had to figure your shit out or get killed by zombies.
Now if you're paying full price for a game you've at least had the ability to read reviews and you know it's going to be half price in a year but you want it now. You also have tens of thousands of other games to pick from in basically any genre you want, accessible more or less on demand.
Now, just click and buy. Done. No fun, no excitement. And the games are all focused on achievements and completion of inane fetch quests.
High quality? Hmmmm.
Also don't rose-colored-glasses older games either, there was a lot of absolute trash. Bargain bins existed for a reason. That said just because a game is bad doesn't mean it isn't still fun in some way, even if for its brokenness. There's an entire genre of games these days where the basic principle is "if you find a bug, but it's funny, it's now a feature".
This was true back then too. Computer Gaming World dates back to 81. Also the software stores that I (i.e., my parents) shopped at back then discounted older titles. This is why I got to play through the Castle of Dr. Brain after the Island of Dr. Brain was released.
well, now you're just making things up
It ruined the game for me, because I never felt like I was let free to actually play the game.
They’re not niche geeky things, they are the most mass of mass media. Their target market includes the the people for whom the “do not ingest” label appears on bottles of bleach, as well as the parents for whom the “this is not a toy” appears in huge letters on plastic packaging bags.
Of course they have to say things in the simplest possible language, repeated 3 times in text AND audio. Otherwise half of their audience will be confused and frustrated, because they have two digit IQs.