And so he escapes. Into screens, into nostalgia, into the cold comfort of Games. The consoles were caste markers. You could tell a kid’s fate by the machine in his living room. The Sega Genesis belonged to the lower class. The kids whose dads worked construction and whose moms watched daytime television. It had blood and speed, a desperate energy. Sonic always ran, never stopped. Streets of Rage taught boys to fight. Mortal Kombat let them kill. The Sega 32X was for the violent trailer parks, the places where the rent was paid in cash and the cops never came. The kid with a 32X had a dad who got laid off, a mom who smoked in the house. The add-on was a false promise, an impossible upgrade. It was meant to elevate, but only dragged its owners further into the pit. The N64 was for proles. It sat in basements with wood paneling, beside tube TVs playing reruns of COPS. GoldenEye taught kids how to aim. Mario Party taught them how to lose. The controller was a joke—three prongs, as if designed for the mutant hands of a lost generation.

The PlayStation was for the upper middle class. The ones who had AOL before everyone else. Their parents drove Volvos, vacationed in Europe. They played Final Fantasy VII and thought they were intellectuals. They played Metal Gear Solid and thought they understood geopolitics.

Then came the GameCube. Its handle made it portable, a toy, something unserious. But it was subversive. It softened boys. Made them comfortable with pastel colors and mascots that squeaked. It smuggled queerness into their bedrooms, made them laugh at men who wore dresses. They thoughtSuper Smash Bros. was just a fighting game. They were wrong.

The Crash

Now we live in the ruins. Games are no longer bought, but rented. No longer played, but farmed. Microtransactions have replaced mastery. DLC has replaced discovery. Every game is a service, every player a wallet waiting to be emptied.

It will not last. A crash is coming.

Just like 1983, but worse. Because back then, games were still toys. Now, they are lifelines. When the servers shut down, when the digital storefronts close, when the endless updates stop, the millennial will look up from his screen and see the world he ignored. The one where he owns nothing. The one where he was left behind.

And then what?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5685507&forum_id=2#48692263)