Year One: Discovery It spread by link and gossip. A freshman passed a URL to a friend in geometry; teachers called it distraction, and the students called it relief. The earliest index was tidy—puzzle, platformer, shooter—each title a passport out of monotony. There was a purity to those first visits. No ads that screamed, no account gates. Just instant play. People learned each other’s favorite titles the way they traded sneakers once traded mixtapes: careful, private, reverent.