Are games in general and the games industry getting worse?

I just had a debate over this with a friend. To me it's obvious the video game industry is getting worse and worse every passing year. My friends disagrees. I'll explain in a second but I was wondering what Any Forums thinks. I don't frequent this place so forive me if the Any Forums hivemind has a clear opinion on this.

Alright, so the way I wanna frame this is by considering "older" and "newer" games and comparing overall quality in these groups. I'll exain later what I mean by "older" and "newer". If you reject this dichotomy to make some crucial point feel free to do so but explain why. Anyway, there's two ways to look at this issue. First, we can consider games on equal ground no matter when they were released. What I mean is that things like graphics will of course generally be better for newer games so so they automatically win in that regard and that's a valid point. We can still compare games from different eras though, for example art direction, story telling, world building, characters, mechanics, music, anti-consumer bullshit and so on. The second way to compare games would be to "normalize" them for their time period. Half-life 2 for example was a technological marvel for its time, System Shock 2 is basically the granddaddy of all modern games and so on, and these things make them impressive even if by modern standards they fall flat in some respects. I should note that it's perhaps a little unfair for brand new games as it's hard to predict what will catch on. Still, I'd say it's pretty clear if a game does something revolutionary. Btw, as much as possible, I want to avoid nostalgia playing a role in either category of consideration.
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So what counts as an "older" game versus a "newer" one? I don't want to create some hard divide, instead think of it as a spectrum with the mid point somewhere near 2007. That's when Halo 3 was released iirc, a game which I don't really consider "old" but technically it's getting there and also I think games from that era were treated generally quite differently from contemporary games. Maybe this way of thinking about this complicates things but I think most of you get what I'm talking about here and if there are some critical edge cases, feel free to point them out. I'm also for the most part talking about AAA or AA games, not indie games (that's another debate we had, apparently AAA games are generally more HQ than anything else).

Alright so that's the setup. My argument is can be split in two: how I feel about games in terms of their actual content and how publishers treat games. First, I think in general (AAA/AA) games have become less inspired, more focused on making a profit rather than creating a fun/interesting experience for the player. That's not to say older games didn't want to make money - of course they did - but I think what sells games now is different from what sold games back then. This is hard to quantify but I think it shows in the quality of the game content: like I said, newer games feel less inspired, more copy paste, chasing trends rather than innovating and so on. There are execptions even in the AAA/AA categories too of course: Elden Ring, Industria looks pretty promising, I liked Outer Worlds etc etc.

I'm not saying if something is new it's automatically generic uninspired trash but overall I see newer games simply less engaging and more tedious and I don't think I'm alone in this. Secondly, there's all that anti-consumer bullshit that I think is on the rise: Microtransactions, loot boxes, DRM, GaaS, P2W, Pre-orders, releasing unfinished games and so on. You know what I'm talking about, for example: back in the day releasing an unfinished game was basically a death sentence. Now it's not only accepted but pretty much standard practice for all games (day 1 patches also usually don't fix nearly half the problems). These things simple weren't present back in the day and it doesn't matter that it's because it wasn't really possible.

My friend seems to think I have some sort of bias for old games that colors my perception. He also says these anti-consumer practices are more common because there are more games and that not all publishers use them. Technically that's true but whereas I would say these practices dominate the industry, he would say only a fraction of publishers do these things and we see them more because there are more games published now. That's all that I got from him, maybe he will reply with a more nuanced version of this argument later. Anyway what does Any Forums think?

Oh I forgot to mention that I think older games are better in both ways: overall they made better games with respect to the HW and standards of the time AND older games also still hold up better than newer games even by modern standards.

>twitterjak
Kill yourself faggot

This is why everyone with a modicum of sense migrated to altchans long ago.

bro I'm not reading all that. The industry is getting worse for the same reason every industry gets worse over time. Its being subverted by the same people who ruin everything. Doesn't take an essay.

the way I see it is that games nowadays try to be everything (or a lot of things) at once. O adding a lot of bloat, so to say. Instead of having a simple shooter with one or two extra mechanics to make the shooting more interestng, you get an open world looter-shooter with RPG elements with a giant map that is filled with fast travel points, useless collectibles and boring linear missions that only take advantage of the the open world by the fact that they take place in a building that you can visit at any time while exploring. Think Far Cry 6. A game that doesn't do this (crucify me if you want) is Sekiro. The games has a focus on killing bosses and travesring the map, with a very nice combat system. And this simplicity let's it have a hand crafted experience that is enjoyable on the first playthroung and following ones. Mind you, Sekiro is a new game, but I' not too qualified to talk about older games as I was born in the 2000's. To summarize, I think the gaming industry and the games are getting worse. Because many newer games, by trying to appeal to everyone, get filled up with so much usseless fat that they become unfocused and samey. And many of them feel like a waste of time to play. I can't really speak for multiplayer games though and I haven't been following many new games, so make of that what you will

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The answer is indie games unironically. If you have shit skills at finding high quality games that's a YOU problem. It is true that it's getting worse but that's to be expected when an industry goes from a hobby or passing interest to a multi trillion dollar money machine with gullible retards and actual children funding it. Obviously it's going to turn to shit.

That's why you are unironically low IQ if you keep looking to AAA game titles for decent quality, a few exceptions obviously. If you think pixelshit the second you hear the word indie you got filtered and might as well save yourself some headache and stop playing games altogether