In an alternate universe Half Life 3 and Duke Nukem Forever were released according to plan.
They were awarded the greatest games ever to be released ever, which made all games that followed obsolete. The games were so good the Oscars opened for a new category, best game. They took turns to win every other year in order to calm the masses.
No other video games ever came close, so developer studios began closing down, and eventually there was only the competing developers of Half Life 3 and Duke Nukem Forever opening DNF and HL3-themed arcades across the world.
Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, since nobody cared about politics anymore. Coincidentally she was killed by her Kingsguard Seth Rich after burning her enemies alive in the White House and threatening to blow up the United States of America with the entire nuclear arsenal. All the wars stopped and there was a treaty signed that said that all armies of the world would hold off on engaging in new conflicts until the real threat, tentacle aliens and their tits would arrive to Earth so that the human race would have the chance to finally live out their dream and become their idols, Gordon Freeman and Duke Nukem in real life.
VR was never brought back. Nor was social media or smart phones even invented.
Those things had no purpose in a world where you could play Half Life 3 and Duke Nukem Forever... forever.
And Alex Jones was considered an oracle, acting as Vice President to the Supreme President Michael Jackson, which helped keep the social justice warriors at bay, as a black, white, lizard, vampire, man or woman now ran the country.