5 Things in Gaming We Took for Granted 10 Years Ago

It would be an understatement to say gaming has changed dramatically since the mid-2010s. Better hardware, faster internet, bigger worlds, and more ambitious games have given us experiences that would have sounded ridiculous a decade ago. But progress has come with a few trade-offs that are easy to notice when you look back.

Some of the things we once considered completely normal have become exceptions, expensive luxuries, or just… memories. From opening a game without downloading half of it first to carrying around a stack of discs, here are five things we took for granted.

5 Complete, Feature-Rich Launch Day Releases

Credits: Rocksteady Studios/WB Games

A decade ago, buying a new game usually meant getting the game. Day-one patches existed, but shipping something fundamentally broken on a disc could turn into a financial and reputational disaster for the developer and publisher alike. Today, large updates and years of post-launch support have made unfinished launches far easier to tolerate.

That isn’t an argument against Early Access or live-service development, of course; both can work brilliantly when used properly. The difference is that players once had stronger expectations that the thing they paid for on release day was actually finished.

4 True Offline Campaigns

Credits: CD Projekt RED

Remember starting a single-player game without wondering whether your internet was working? If your connection went poof, the campaign generally carried on because there was no server waiting to approve your right to play it. That simplicity is harder to find now, particularly on PC.

Sure, always-online requirements have some legitimate uses, including DRM and multiplayer infrastructure, but they can create strange situations for games that fundamentally don’t need a connection. A solo campaign should not need to phone home every time you want to play it.

3 Cheat Codes and Developer Consoles

Credits: Rockstar Games/YouTube via @NannersFive

There was a particular magic to typing something ridiculous into a game and watching the rules fall apart. GTA: Vice City gave us codes like “COMEFLYWITHME” and “SEAWAYS”, while San Andreas had “HESOYAM” and “CHITTYCHITTYBANGBANG,” to name a few. No battle pass, achievement, or reward track required.

Cheat codes haven’t disappeared completely, but they are nowhere near as common in big releases. Developer consoles remain a PC staple in some games, yet the old tradition of deliberately breaking a game’s rules for a laugh has faded. Here’s hoping Rockstar remembers its own history when GTA 6 arrives.

2 Sub-50 GB Storage Requirements

Credits: Steam/FandomWire

A 50GB installation once felt enormous. Now, you can download a single modern game that eats three or four times that amount before you’ve even installed its updates. Some shooters and RPGs have pushed well beyond 150GB, turning storage management into a part of owning whatever system you choose to game on.

Larger worlds, higher resolution assets, and increasingly detailed audio all contribute to the problem, alongside plenty of debate over optimization. Either way, the days when a standard hard drive (SSD? What’s that?) could comfortably hold dozens of games are long gone.

1 Physical Discs That Actually Contained the Full Game

Credits: Rockstar Games

This one probably hurts the most. A physical game used to mean you owned a copy of the software that could actually be played from the disc. You could lend it, sell it, collect it, and, in many cases, keep playing years later without worrying about a storefront.

The packaging could be part of the fun, too. GTA 5 famously shipped with a full-size map that was practically begging to end up on a bedroom wall. Now, we have the likes of Sony, a company that once championed physical games and even built marketing around lending discs to friends, pushing gamers toward a digital-only future, while the growing debate around game preservation and ownership has made the humble disc feel more valuable than ever.

Which of these do you miss the most, and what other part of gaming from the 2010s deserves a spot here? Let us know in the comments below!