It’s pretty human nature to look back at the past and wish that you had done some things different. My imagination sometimes thinks about what I would say to Past Me if I was given an opportunity — what advice I would say, encouragement, etc.

But if I was going to make recommendations to Past Me about gaming, I really don’t know whether or not I’d advise myself to get into MMORPGs earlier on. Back in college in the late 1990s, I didn’t have internet in my dorm room, so it wasn’t until 1999 that I started to have dial-up access wherever I lived. And that was, of course, dial-up. I didn’t use the internet to game; I was still engaging in console and single-player PC titles.

I was somewhat aware of MMOs back then, but only in the sense that a few of my friends played them and seemed…