The fall chill was in the air, in 2007. It was another Hallow’s End and the decorations, quests and festivities in World of Warcraft were the exact spirit of Halloween. The world felt like a fantasy novel had come alive and the holiday had this sense of true meaning. Now it’s as if a holiday is more side quests, you don’t really want to mess with unless the game offers some kind of inresistable reward for the effort. Players complain frequently about the lack of connection with holiday events or, even worse, they get almost little press and fanfare being more or less automatic gestures of the change of time. Why in two decades has gaming changed so much from the cozy, comfy connected holiday experience to what tad amounts to almost ignorable window dressing in online games? While I think it wouldn’t be fair to answer that with a…
By David Piner