"Connectivity". You can't seem to go anywhere without the word being shoved in your face. Everything needs to be 'connected'. 'Connected' to the internet, 'connected' to services, 'connected' to each other. This is something we are told is imperative to the future of gaming. Giving us a service on top of our games seems to be the priority of most major companies now, with Sony even basing a large part of the Playstation 4's selling point on its connectivity. While in theory our future most certainly does lie in interconnectivity, the application thus far has been incredibly flawed. Most recently highlighted by Sim City's always online model, these well intentioned services can end up being more restrictive than freeing. These experiences have often stopped us from enjoying a game as much as we could because they are trying to control the way we interact with it rather than trying to compliment it. Interactivity is possibly the defining feature of our medium and having our games supported by services is a logical step forward, but they should be centered around empowering us and not publishers. I am a massive supporter of the 'casual gamer' and believe accepting more people into gaming is the key to its success. However, many of us who flocked to gaming did so because we wanted to become encompassed in a fictional world. Much of the old-guard play games to become lost in them, and connectivity can be a thorn in the side of that achievement. Sometimes we play games to get away from the world and don't need to be connected to all our social features at any one time.