A thought occurred to me.
In the past, hobbies lasted for the lifetime of the participant. You could start a hobby, and have a reasonable chance of amusing yourself with it for the rest of your life. The skills you developed at the start would last. If you played a sport, age would catch up with you, but you could still have fun playing. More sedate hobbies, like stamp collecting wouldn’t change at all.
These days, the hobby of video games breaks that mold.
Video games are spurious. The fun I have had with old games will never come again. The skills and strategies I gained to play “Uncharted Waters” will wither and die.
I could try the game again because I did have fun playing it in the past, but I also finished it. And now there are more advanced games that I should try. It’s a never ending battle to get a hit from the latest game. Unfortunately I tend to look back. I’ve been working to play games that have been gone for decades, simply because I never finished them the first time around. I’ve already finished Ultima 1 to 3, and someday Ultima 4 will fall before me.
But I can’t dwell in the past forever. I have a literal pile of old computers lurking in my closet; A Mac Performa 6200, and a Mac Plus that will never be used again. But I am now going through the process of taking them to my car for a trip to the Eco station. A part of me is dying, but I have to face facts. I will probably never enjoy “Dark Castle” on it again. (Although I hear you can get it for cell phones now.) I won’t have an epic battle in “Reach for the Stars”. All I will have is the memories.