Old PC games were actually more complicated than modern games

 Master of Orion is a video game from 1993 for PC that is, to put it lightly, insanely complicated, to the point of being obtuse. While trawling around an abandonware site (a site that aggregates very old games that are no longer available for purchase), one encounters a large number of games that are actually quite complicated. 

Old games on PC were not graphically competent, but tended to be very technically dense. Video games were a niche interest back in those days and only smart people really had access to them. The design language of these old games assumes that you have at least some amount of technical knowledge, as you would have had to have it just to get the game running on your PC. These games are more "raw" than modern games, less sanitized in their rules and the presentation of their mechanics. Twenty-five years of game development evolution have really caused modern games to be easy to use, even if they happen to be quite mechanically deep. 

Most early games on the PC required the user to use and understand the manual before ever hoping to play the game at any level of competency. 

What I find strange is that we tend to associate that era of gaming (1980-2000) as a very simplistic time for video games. And while that certainly is the case on consoles and arcade box machines, on PC it was a totally different age. Games then were as complicated or more complicated than the games of today, without the game design knowledge that we take for granted, such as tutorials and slow-feeding critical information. When Frogger was being played on the Atari, games like Master of Orion were utilizing all the brain space that a coded environment could muster. The people who made PC games back then knew their audience. It wasn't casual gamers, it was hard-core nerds and computerphiles. The amount of effort required to even boot up those games back then--even the effort required to own a PC--was a barrier that created a user base that really ended up fueling some really complex games. 

So when you think of the eighties and nineties and the games that existed back then, don't restrict your imagination to Street Fighter-level complexity (though Street Fighter was quite operationally complex. Just not mechanically complex.) Games back then were made by smart people, probably smarter than the people who are working on games today. Back then to be a game developer on PC meant you had to be total nerd. Also, the lack of a large, monetizable audience meant that only true nerds would develop for PC. Thus, the PC games of the eighties and nineties were created by nerds, for nerds, and looked the part. Retool your imagination of the games of that era and you'll come to a better understanding of the history of video games. 

Also, look up abandonware websites. You'll find some amazing gems that have been forgotten, lost to time, played by literally no one. Perhaps you'll find something that suits your fancy.