This is silly reporting with a couple of interesting stories. Forget about the technical ways of doing it. Doing it at all changes the game experience.

Pausing a game has a massive impact on the game experience. It lets you break the fourth wall experientially. Not wrong, but it changes the dynamic of the game.

Same as saving at any time does. As losing your loot or your life permanently does. Not wrong, but a hard choice that appeals to some players and not to others.

I used to pause pacman on my Atari 800 so I could run to church and sing in the choir or be an altar boy. Then I ran home and unpaused to continue. Sometimes in summer the computer over-heated and I lost everything while I was at church.

Lessons learnt? None, I think :)