Cherry picking the best examples does not support your argument. The further back you go(within reason, not talking coleco/atari), the easier it is to find a solid, fun, complete experience out the box. Now we literally have charts for releases to let you know if the version u buy is even the full game. Were getting more and more SP games where the game isn’t even on the disk, we literally have to research if a game is just a game or a live service platform before getting excited. Sorry no.
Like sure there are still absolute bangers, but they are nowhere near as common and outside those bangers is a sea of trash made by HR departments and investors with no soul, not to mention the AI slop hitting these days. Sure it’s always money 1st but 2nd It used to be an industry driven by passion, nerds wanting to make stuff because they had vision, a cool idea, now it’s all chasing numbers, data, and trends and examples of too many cooks. I have A broad spectrum of interest when it comes to games and I’ve always bought all types of games, every generation and this generation. I’ve bought the fewest amount of games by far, this entire generation and i only have like 15-20games not counting digital only indie games and such. I have over 150ps4 games and over 100 each for ps3, ps2, Wii (great for hidden gems) GameCube, OGXBOX, and other retro consoles.
Things seem to be turning around, i mean look at this years VGAs and Larians speach, but we ain’t there yet, and generally speaking, games these days definitely aren’t good