The title of an article from Polygon:
Doom was rising, the Amiga was dying, and these weird clones met in the middle
I don't quite understand what is meeting what (or maybe who?) in the middle? Does it refer to the clones that meet themselves in in the middle between rising Doom and the dying Amiga? Or possibly users meet (play, see) these clones between rising Doom and the dying Amiga?
I'm sorry but I have no other ideas. 🙁
Best Answer
First, let's get through the background. The clones that the title refers to are Doom clones. "Doom clone" was a popular name for first-person shooter video games in the late 1990s. (Many of these games were seen as copying Doom, which is where the name comes from.)
The article links to a video about Doom clones on the Amiga. The Amiga was a line of computers made by Commodore. They were notable mainly for having advanced multimedia features and a very loyal fan base. The Amiga was never a very popular platform, and eventually died due to lack of sales.
The title of the article tries to establish the time, circumstances, and subject of the video. Doom came out in 1993 and quickly became very popular. Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994, which mostly killed the Amiga. The Amiga-based Doom clones were a connection between these two events.
The title starts with a contrast (rising/dying) and then draws a connection between them. It's a clever idea. Unfortunately, the title is not very grammatical. Meeting in the middle requires two nouns. It's understandable to a native speaker, but it sounds a little odd. Something like "these weird clones were in the middle" might have been better. It's a subjective judgement, and I haven't seen the video.