There's an element that all the silliness of the LAN party was technically necessary for the production, and as a grassroots thing the hardship added to the buyin and culture.

Part of the reason this was all acceptable in the LAN party era was that you were having fun together with friends while dealing with the annoyances. You could curse, you could laugh, and you could eat pizza together while you were wrestling with the faulty ethernet hub (remember those?) or whatnot. I remember I once accidentally blew a transformer at my friend's home while getting set up, and we all had a good laugh.

Nowadays, you play a game over the internet and you would be lucky to have even a friend next to you watching enthusiastically and intently.

More than that, people knew that they were going to have to do technology stuff, and tech stuff was oriented more at semi technical users.

So people actually learned how to do stuff, and that in itself was fun. Whereas the current low friction set up is so difficult to fix that if the first three Google results don't work, there's nothing you can do.

More than that, people knew that they were going to have to do technology stuff, and tech stuff was oriented more at semi technical users.

So people actually learned how to do stuff, and that in itself was fun. Whereas the current low friction set up is so difficult to fix that if the first three Google results don't work, there's nothing you can do.

* * *

Am I misreading your post? I think that’s my whole point right?

Someone is agreeing with you... on the internet.

Oh lol - I read it as a critique of my post (which confused me) not an agreement about the parent article