sp3ctr4l

As you say, it goes back even further that SBMM, to the large scale abandonment of the dedi server paradigm in favor of auto match making.

Nearly no online games even have actual server browsers now.

Back in the late 90s through the 2000s to early to mid 2010s…

Nearly every online game was a dedicated server, or at least you throwing open a temporary server with your own custom control over maps and gamemodes.

Many dedicated servers were run by a person or community… and this enabled communities to form around them, enabled lasting relationships to be made, hell, probably most mods or clans for most of those kinds of games arose from that, and a lot of those went on to later become massively more expansive, start their own game studio and put out their own games.

Now thats almost all gone.

You… used to be able to get onto a Battlefield server and know the regulars, like a bar.

That promotes at least a baseline of basic manners and etiquette.

Now all you can do is look at a general conception of an entire game’s community, because the player has no agency to actually choose to associate or not associate with certain people or groups.

This is exactly, exactly the same thing as the guy at the bar or restaurant who thinks all the waitresses and servers are actually hitting on him, for real bro.