Quote Originally Posted by Coratanni View Post
I've been around a long, long time. Gaming since the 80's. Using the internet since the mid 90's.

When did it become popular to announce you were leaving something? This was not something people started doing until the last 5-10 years. Where on Earth did this desire for attention come from? Hoping that people try and convince you to come back? That's like someone in a relationship saying they're leaving it, and wanting the partner to fight for them...
It's been popular way longer than that. If you were ever on GameFAQs back in the mid 2000's you'd see them all the time.
I think a lot of it is a very justifiable bitterness towards companies that take your money and time but won't listen to your feedback for years. So when you finally do quit, it's after a long time of constant BS and it's usually after some final straw has pushed you to be like "That's it, I'm done," and that moment is usually full of emotion. And so, in that state of mind, people will take to an official forum usually hoping (against their own common sense) that someday somebody responsible for all this crap will read their thoughts and understand that their decisions have pushed someone out who used to be quite loyal. I can 100% understand where OP is coming from in his feelings. I don't think it's hard to empathize with him if you actually give it a shot.

If you didn't see this sort of thing in the 80s or the 90s it might've been because the monetization model was different. Nowadays, games are sold to you as a live service with really predatory cash shops attached alongside other gross monetization models. Back when I bought a game in the 90's, it was just a single experience and the thought of getting thousands of hours out of it and building multiplayer communities within it was kind of nonsense. It was easy to put down those games when I was tired of them, and for some of the older ones it wasn't even possible to really vent my feelings because those communication methods (forums, internet) weren't even around yet.

Anyway, farewell OP. Personally I'm in a very similar boat, but I'm waiting for JP fanfest and Dawntrail. I'm also having fun with a small niche group of friends; if they ever left, I'd disappear so fast.