There was a brief moment between the death of arcades and the birth of WoW where single player style story based games and local multiplayer were the primary product. And I think that colored a lot of expectations for what video games should/could be.

to agree and add - this also coincided with the advent of internet forums allowing worldwide discussion of niches like video games, setting the expectations for what "good" video games were and should be. These expectations and opinions have largely stuck around since the early 2000s, probably because they were the first worldwide, accessible, free to access opinions that the world could disseminate