MUDS and the BBS era were two I largely miss, and I sometimes wonder what I missed out on; especially things like communal Nethack.

2 more examples came to my mind.

1.) Light cycle games / Tron bikes

To the tune of games such as: Bananatron , GLtron, is Armagetron Advanced. They actually released the game on steam 2 years ago, labeled as Retrocycles. In order to make it more accessible to new players.

That game was very customizable, had many different game modes and a monthly Ladder ranking competition called ''Laddle''. It was, and still is an awesome game!

Unfortunately everything casual about it seems to have died out. :(
There are still loyal teams duking it out in the Laddle, but everything else just screams ''graveyard''.

The server list brings up an error.
The forum entries are borderline ''I am not hosting my server anymore'' or from 2017.
And the game being very customizable also means that the ''I want to click a button and play'' people will not spend 5 minutes changing settings, much less reading up on how you can setup, say, your own Main Menu background for a game that you can essentially only play against AI anyway.

For all intent and purposes I fear the light-cycle genre has passed. :(

2.) Freeware hacking simulator Dark Signs

This one is interesting because for several years this game had vanished. All traces of it were gone.
Then it reappeared.

But what is this game?

A hacking simulator to the tune of Uplink or even better yet - Hacknet!

In order to progress in this game you had to write your own scripts.
It had a built-in programming language. Maybe crude and primitive, but name even one game that has that feature! Apart from Hacknet, obviously. But I don't remember if in Hacknet you could write scripts, or it if it was just command line typing. In Dark Signs you HAD to create your own ''Scan number range; add +1; repeat'' to pass unto the next level.

The game somehow vanished; got replaced with some... silly... multiplayer version.
(Seriously, ''silly'' is the best way to describe that fever dream. I did not understand what the point of an ''open point'' version was; and the programs, that were shared around, were just too high for me.)

Then even the multiplayer version vanished.

I don't know what kind of memory diving I went through, but somehow, it appears the original reappeared 2 years ago.

*fun fact - in the FPS Tron 2.0 there are 3 light-cycle levels.
Many people complained that those were too hard and could barely beat those. Due to my Armagetron experience I found those bike levels relaxingly easy... huh...

Since you mentioned it, has anyone an idea where to get "Polytron"?
Around 30 years ago that was a DOS Lightcyle game for up to 8 players (on one keyboard) with lines that had different turn angles (90, 45,30, 120). And it was extremely fun as hell, especially if someone pressed Caps Lock ...

How do you do, fellow kidz?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lUiMIfZs6XI
GOAT AINEC

You might want to provide context.

Unfortunately no. I checked the mobygames archive for light cycle games and the only two with more than 4 players that I could find were:

Červi
Dune 3 ???

Must have been a very obscure game then. :<

It would be borderline hard for 4 players to share 1 keyboard, sans mouse, but 8 ???
Did you actually play such a game?! :D Talk about Hotseat

Ultima Online was pretty good one.

Ah, now there's an experience I've always been curious about but found curiously poorly documented. Just reading of some of the incidents or happenstances which organically occurred was quite the thing.

I've been involved with a few game engine communities -- both hobby and commercial.

I've spent time in communities based on indie, forgotten, or underappreciated games.

I've tinkered with emulators but wouldn't say I've been a part of those communities.

I've spent a little time in game-specific communities -- ie Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma communities.

MUSHes, especially Dune MUSH and Elendor, also Dune II MUSH. RPd the hell put on these places. Loved every minute of that, back in the day. Great people there.

Also MUDs, especially Dune MUD, but MUSHes were more my thing.

Home of the Underdogs. Learned a lot there and met so many gems. Still going on strong.

A bit of emulation for SNES and some other machines. Met lovely games like Bahamut Lagoon, Romancing SaGa III, the Romance of Three Kingdoms series, and so on.

GOG, when it was a more tightly knit community focused mostly on classic games. There was a price to pay for getting new games here as well. However, there are still interesting threads in the forum, now and then.

Edit: Must I mention shareware as well? Also freeware titles, like Dark Discioles, Diver Dawn, etc, but these freeware titles I met mostly via Home of the Underdogs.

Also I forgot to mention IF, which is short for Interactive Fiction. Unforgettable games like Vespers and so many others. The work of Emily Short and other very good writers/game makers ought to be better known. HoTU has a great section about IF made for different engines.

Retro gaming and Emulation for sure. (It wasn't retro when I got started)

DOS gaming, Shareware and Demo Scene coding back in the VGA era.

My ability to experience or otherwise get involved game subcultures has been impacted by my employment in the gaming industry, and being involved in the creation of, digital download age resurrection of, or otherwise working on, several very VERY well known gaming franchises over a nearly 30 year span.

I can't really interact with fans of the games I've helped create, except for in a limited, "approved' capacity, as the "owners" of the games as Intellectual property sometimes are hyper paranoid about any and all things said or implied even to the tiniest audience. The Console Manufactures are among the worst for this, sometimes to the point of firing or suing someone for unauthorized public discussion. Even when the employer is the most understanding and encouraging, fans and media are still a field of land mines to navigate.

As a result, as I've gotten old, it has become too exhausting to involve myself on my own time in the industry that paid for my living for the past 3 decades.

I don't blame you on that last bit. About this part, I'm reminded of one particularly spicy meatball who seems to have made an entire carrier out of oversharing in the industry. After he got a probation in 2009, he seems to have gotten blackballed out of the industry. "Knowing the magic" certainly would shift one's perspective, yeah.

Let's just say that for a part of my career I worked at a developer known for it's lack of putting out a "3". If I said anything online that could be identified with my employer, directly or indirectly, there was a high chance it could wind up on a game industry rumor website and fuel some crazy speculation.

I like to use the term "How the Sausage is Made", but yours works just as well. And as you correctly noted, it makes ones perspective different, not necessarily worse or better.

One small upside of my profession is that all my game library purchases can be written off on my taxes as a work expense.

The first one is current and nacent. But if you feel something has changed to cause you to feel left out, I suppose you could explain.

As for Civ 3, that's more on the money. I feel like a lot of people skipped it.