I Miss Watching Other People Play Games.
Me too. I have so many games on Steam, playing them alone. Online gaming? Nah. Latency drives me nuts and the all voice chat thing no thanks.
I remember watching my cousin play that French RPG on my mom’s brand new IBMs. Taking notes on paper. I was amazed. I couldn’t understand shit but it was exciting, he was telling me what was going on. I remember learning the word “to bribe” (soudoyer en français) as you could do that with NPCs. I was like 7.
Then the 16bit era was entirely a bunch of dudes sitting on a bed/couch passing the controller experience. I didn’t have any console at home so I sucked at most games and watched my friends play. Cheering them up “man you were so close next time you’ll have it” following the story unfold together… During the boring parts I would grab a game magazine and talk about that next game page 43 with my dude while he was doing that boss again and again.
I hate bosses in games. Fuck ‘em.
Consoles were awesome at that time. Switch on, boom. These days it’s horrifying. I remember last year trying to play some MarvelVSCapcom on a PS3 with a friend… Controller issues, updates to discard, reboot. After 20 mn of shenanigans I was over playing.
Watching people play ultimately led me to making games because seeing all those smiles and passion during all those years made me want to do that: make people happy through interactive stuff.