Another data point on this theory. When I was a child “computer games” meant 5 overexcited children screaming and shoving one another off a sofa while at any one time 4 out of 5 of them were nominally playing on the nintendo (mario kart and party were particularly popular). This clearly shifted a lot, because around 2018 I remember returning a new halo game when I found out it couldn’t do split-screen. (It honestly never occurred to me to check, a shooter without split screen just feels, awful).
To me, the new “bowling alone” is “FPS without split screen”.
Meanwhile, split-screen seems to me to be such a patently horrible way to play an FPS that I can’t imagine anyone liking it (and I’ve been playing FPSes since FPSes existed).
Another data point on this theory. When I was a child “computer games” meant 5 overexcited children screaming and shoving one another off a sofa while at any one time 4 out of 5 of them were nominally playing on the nintendo (mario kart and party were particularly popular). This clearly shifted a lot, because around 2018 I remember returning a new halo game when I found out it couldn’t do split-screen. (It honestly never occurred to me to check, a shooter without split screen just feels, awful).
To me, the new “bowling alone” is “FPS without split screen”.
Meanwhile, split-screen seems to me to be such a patently horrible way to play an FPS that I can’t imagine anyone liking it (and I’ve been playing FPSes since FPSes existed).