It continued all the way into the 2000s. A particularly stupid episode was the outcry around Mass Effect, which was thankfully short-lived due to Geoff Keighley's excellent response [1]. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but the moral panic around video games seemed to die down around the time Jack Thompson was disbarred.
Strictly speaking, I have never been a gamer, although I enjoyed in the past playing games, either alone or with friends; back then the hardware was the C64 and later the Amiga. I still have memories of epic tournaments, one of which brought me and a friend to an actual physical fight:^)
After growing up a bit, and as a formerly avid SF reader, I started enjoying immersive games with actual plots. I liked a lot Half Life 2, although it didn't really have a fully developed plot, and later fell in love with the Mass Effect series, which to me is a kick ass TV series waiting to happen.
I have considered multiple times getting a console, but always chose the PC. Actually I still have my old Wii which I use from time to time to do some exercising at home, but for serious gaming, today I'd get a PC. My current machine is too old for anything serious, so I'm planning to get soon an upgrade with a Ryzen G series CPU which would work for light games.
The choice IMO depends on what the user might do (or plan to do in the future) with the device. A console is a much simpler device one can turn on and start playing in seconds, while a PC is more time consuming (installs, load times, fiddling with drivers or other issues, etc.) but is also on a whole different league wrt features and use cases. I left out small devices like tablets and portable consoles because to me they're too limited, and also I can't feel immersed in a game if it occupies just a small screen, but since you mention them, I would suggest a look at the Steam Deck: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/
Edith Finch is one of my favorite games of all time, as well.
I debated not including it on the above list, because one of the things it does absolutely fantastically well is, lets call it, ludonarrative resonance. The opposite of ludonarrative dissonance; it synergizes gameplay and story to such an incredibly powerful degree, that its story is made better by the gameplay, and its gameplay (what it has) is made better by the story.
That being said, its gameplay is more in the Firewatch/Telltale category than, say, Mass Effect.
Another game which feels squarely in the ludonarrative resonant category is Celeste. If you've played Celeste, you know: its a hell of a frustrating experience. Your experience clearing those platforming challenges precisely mirrors Madeline's experience scaling the mountain. You'll have moments where you'll tell yourself "this game is too hard for me", "I can't do this", just like how Badeline tries to convince Madeline that she isn't good enough to climb the mountain. In the end, you never stop feeling frustrated; you learn to live with the frustration, as it pushes you to be a better player; just as Madeline learns to live with her ugly side, and it makes them both better for it by giving you a double dash for the last level.
Celeste could never be a movie; its narrative is too simple to work outside a form of interactive media, where the interactivity empowers the narrative by creating in you the same emotions being narrated through the main character.
I've been playing games since Commodore 64. I've played through Amiga, early PC, Playstation, etc games. The problem is that gaming became an industry and the companies behind AAA games want you to spend as much time playing their game as possible. The 100% fun of Chaos Engine which took 4 hours became 150 hours of boring side-questing (I look at you Skyrim). The somach-wrenching action of Freespace 2 became endless leveling up, unlocking, achievement gathering in Battlefield or World of Tanks. This problem you describe is quite refreshing though but familiar if I think about it. I can only name a few games from recent years which have deep narrative (SOMA, Talos Principle for example) but most of them have some gameplay problems which you have to get used to. For example SOMA is unnerving, Talos Principle is full of hard puzzles. If you are not already a gamer you won't see what gaming can give you. This is a Catch 22 which is really hard to bypass. What I would really love to see is something like Dwarf Fortress which is __very__ deep but combersome in a neat package which can entertain me for a few hours (or weeks if I want). I also really like the direction Quantic Dream took with their games which are interactive movies with optional exploration. What I __REALLY__ miss though is well-written story and characters with real personality with the protagonist (the player) marching through a monumental and engaging storyline like we saw in Mass Effect. I really wish I could erase my memories of playing Mass Effect, System Shock 2, Undying, Half-Life and others so I can replay them and enjoy them again for the first time.
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It continued all the way into the 2000s. A particularly stupid episode was the outcry around Mass Effect, which was thankfully short-lived due to Geoff Keighley's excellent response [1]. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but the moral panic around video games seemed to die down around the time Jack Thompson was disbarred.
[1]: https://youtu.be/PKzF173GqTU
Strictly speaking, I have never been a gamer, although I enjoyed in the past playing games, either alone or with friends; back then the hardware was the C64 and later the Amiga. I still have memories of epic tournaments, one of which brought me and a friend to an actual physical fight:^) After growing up a bit, and as a formerly avid SF reader, I started enjoying immersive games with actual plots. I liked a lot Half Life 2, although it didn't really have a fully developed plot, and later fell in love with the Mass Effect series, which to me is a kick ass TV series waiting to happen. I have considered multiple times getting a console, but always chose the PC. Actually I still have my old Wii which I use from time to time to do some exercising at home, but for serious gaming, today I'd get a PC. My current machine is too old for anything serious, so I'm planning to get soon an upgrade with a Ryzen G series CPU which would work for light games. The choice IMO depends on what the user might do (or plan to do in the future) with the device. A console is a much simpler device one can turn on and start playing in seconds, while a PC is more time consuming (installs, load times, fiddling with drivers or other issues, etc.) but is also on a whole different league wrt features and use cases. I left out small devices like tablets and portable consoles because to me they're too limited, and also I can't feel immersed in a game if it occupies just a small screen, but since you mention them, I would suggest a look at the Steam Deck: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/
Edith Finch is one of my favorite games of all time, as well.
I debated not including it on the above list, because one of the things it does absolutely fantastically well is, lets call it, ludonarrative resonance. The opposite of ludonarrative dissonance; it synergizes gameplay and story to such an incredibly powerful degree, that its story is made better by the gameplay, and its gameplay (what it has) is made better by the story.
That being said, its gameplay is more in the Firewatch/Telltale category than, say, Mass Effect.
Another game which feels squarely in the ludonarrative resonant category is Celeste. If you've played Celeste, you know: its a hell of a frustrating experience. Your experience clearing those platforming challenges precisely mirrors Madeline's experience scaling the mountain. You'll have moments where you'll tell yourself "this game is too hard for me", "I can't do this", just like how Badeline tries to convince Madeline that she isn't good enough to climb the mountain. In the end, you never stop feeling frustrated; you learn to live with the frustration, as it pushes you to be a better player; just as Madeline learns to live with her ugly side, and it makes them both better for it by giving you a double dash for the last level.
Celeste could never be a movie; its narrative is too simple to work outside a form of interactive media, where the interactivity empowers the narrative by creating in you the same emotions being narrated through the main character.
I've been playing games since Commodore 64. I've played through Amiga, early PC, Playstation, etc games. The problem is that gaming became an industry and the companies behind AAA games want you to spend as much time playing their game as possible. The 100% fun of Chaos Engine which took 4 hours became 150 hours of boring side-questing (I look at you Skyrim). The somach-wrenching action of Freespace 2 became endless leveling up, unlocking, achievement gathering in Battlefield or World of Tanks. This problem you describe is quite refreshing though but familiar if I think about it. I can only name a few games from recent years which have deep narrative (SOMA, Talos Principle for example) but most of them have some gameplay problems which you have to get used to. For example SOMA is unnerving, Talos Principle is full of hard puzzles. If you are not already a gamer you won't see what gaming can give you. This is a Catch 22 which is really hard to bypass. What I would really love to see is something like Dwarf Fortress which is __very__ deep but combersome in a neat package which can entertain me for a few hours (or weeks if I want). I also really like the direction Quantic Dream took with their games which are interactive movies with optional exploration. What I __REALLY__ miss though is well-written story and characters with real personality with the protagonist (the player) marching through a monumental and engaging storyline like we saw in Mass Effect. I really wish I could erase my memories of playing Mass Effect, System Shock 2, Undying, Half-Life and others so I can replay them and enjoy them again for the first time.