Whatever happened to fun?

To those of you reading this now who are older than the Playstation era that started with the PS1 in 1994, I ask the following questions.

Do you remember waking up as a little boy, hoping against hope your parents would let you play Super Mario Bros? Or whatever was your favorite game of the time.

Do you remember the weekends your parents would let you stay up until the wee hours of the morning, as you were lost in concentration on a new hit game you just couldn't put down?

Do you remember playing games before they had saves, and leaving your console on all night until you woke up the next day so that you wouldn't lose your place in the game after spending countless hours playing?

Those were the days weren't they? Back when you didn't care about how good a game looked, or if it had a deep story, or compelling characters, or perfect sound. It was just you and an addictive hobby which became a pastime for you.

Whatever happened to that? Why can't we just have fun with our games these days? Why does it always have to be an endless scrutiny of every single facet of the games design and content?

Look around on the internet at any gaming news site, and you will NEVER come across a thread that DOESN'T have ANY discussion about graphics, or sound, or character development, or game mechanics. If you take the time to read comments, you will hardly ever see any kind of variant on the phrase "Oh man, this game is so much fun." Even future titles are scrutinized based on screenshots and minute long trailers for graphical glitches and the like.

Whatever happened to throwing your controller at the tv in anger, but picking it right back up and trying again because you're lost in the zone?

I've said what I'm about to say in a recent comment but, nowadays gamers and critics remind me of any episode of Frasier. Critiquing every small nuance and detail of game. I'm surprised we actually don't have gamers and critics critiquing the actual discs the games come on.

"Well the rainbow pattern is rather dull, and the disc plane is not completely 2 dimensional, I'm going to have to mark the game down for this."

Whatever happened to playing games for fun? Yes, as we grow our palettes change, but our ability to have fun and play games for fun should not change at all. Sure we can have our gory horror games, but focus on that instead of "@#$% would you look at that screen tearing?! I can't enjoy this game now."

I don't know exactly how or when this sense of entitlement began, but for those of us who've been gaming since before it reared its ugly head, I say that gamers today are very spoiled and have thus forgotten the true purpose behind video games. That being that they are interactive ENTERTAINMENT!

If the things you focus on are graphics and glitches, I feel sorry for you.

Remember gamer guys and gals alike; it's all about having fun.