Did you try looking at old aerial photos too? I did the same thing last spring and the 1950s survey shots on county GIS sites showed buildings that Google's earliest imagery missed since it only goes back to like the 80s in most rural areas. Cross check with the historical topo maps on USGS, the little black squares mark structures that might be gone now. Found a couple of root cellars that way that nobody would guess are there from satellite alone.

Split screen didn't die because of that, it died because consoles stopped pushing local play so hard once online took over. The friend's half of the screen thing is real though, my wife and I used to play Halo co-op and she'd get mad I kept looking at her side. Honestly couch co-op is making a bit of a comeback with stuff like It Takes Two and Split Fiction. That old guy might be onto something but the reason is more about money than eyeballs.