Taking part in the Nexon PEAK Post Challenge

https://peak.nexon.com/post/1926

They say even mountains and rivers change in ten years, and honestly, ever since I first got into games, the world really has changed a lot. The first game I started with was Baram, and in my 라떼 days I think it was the first monthly-subscription game I ever played.

After that came Elancia, and then Mabinogi (hereafter, original Mabinogi).

Back then, once two hours passed, Nao would go “You punk!” and drag me off, so I used to make a run for a dungeon, but now the game itself is free to play. Instead, it’s the kind of setup where you buy items.

But the biggest change I feel isn’t the monetization model at all, it’s the platform.

Back then, a PC online game really was just that—a PC online game. You had to turn on the computer to play, and once the computer was off, the game was over too.

These days, though, that line has gotten really blurry.

Even with Mabinogi Mobile, which I’m playing these days, the name says mobile, but at home I actually play it on PC more often. When I’m out, I knock out my daily quests, my 숙제, on my phone, and when I get home I turn the PC back on and go do Abyss or raids.

At first I was like, “Why would I play a mobile game on a computer?” but now it’s just more comfortable that way.

At this point, is it a PC game or a mobile game

Auto-play is the same story.

In older MMORPGs, if you stepped away for even a second, it was pretty common to come back dead or lying in town.

I mean, have you ever gone AFK at the inn for a minute and come back to find your character dead

Now, though, you just click one button, go make a quick bathroom trip, and your character is still out there diligently farming mobs on its own.

At first I thought, “Can you even call this a game?” but people really are fickle. Now, if there’s no auto, it just feels inconvenient.

Of course, in games like Mabinogi Mobile, the party leader can limit auto-play, so I really liked that it still leaves room for people who want to play manually. More than auto itself, I think the bigger change is that now we actually have a choice.

And then there’s game size. This part is genuinely scary.

Back then, all you had to worry about was your PC hard drive space, but now the first thing I check is my phone storage. Every update makes the game a little bigger. With a 128GB phone, even installing a single game starts to feel tight.

It’s not like I’m even out here hardcore fangirling over anything, so why is my phone storage always short?

In the end, it comes down to one of two things: either you change your phone, or you quit the game. It almost feels like games aren’t leveling up your character anymore, they’re leveling up your phone specs.

When you think about it, graphics have improved, there’s more content, and platforms have become much freer. A lot of things really have gotten much more convenient than they used to be.

I feel like this trend is only going to get stronger from here. Instead of drawing a hard line between PC and mobile, it’ll probably feel more natural to just keep playing the same game on whatever device you log in from.

I wonder what it’ll all look like ten years from now.

Even then, I’ll probably still be playing some new game and going, “Back in my 라떼 days...”