I miss when buying a retail game mattered.
First, you had to buy the game. You had to pick it out and spend money to get a physical thing in a box. Then once you got home, you could read the manual and look at the art on the discs. Then, it was an event to install a game. You had to shut down anything else you were doing, for fear of corrupting the installation (actually happened once because my brother was doing something while I was installing a game, true story). You'd have to type in a long CD key, and sit and watch the concept art scroll by and change the discs out as the installer demanded. Then, once you were at peak excitement to play the game, you could finally sit down and be blown away by something you were truly excited to experience, like waiting in line for a movie premiere at the theater.
Now, the disk barely even matters. Even if the disc has game data it'll probably be out-of-date and need patches by the time it reaches you, so you have to install Steam or Origin or Battle.net or whatever the fuck online service anyway, so why even bother? And installing a game is an unobtrusive background process that you barely even notice, so there's no build-up to play the game. "Eh, Skyrim's finished, I might check it out in a week when I have time."
I don't care if it's irrational nostalgia, this is the irrational nostalgia that I choose to have.