The ruin of modern games is the perfect shit storm of:

• The quest for the other side of the uncanny valley, making releases closer to decades
• The death of the in-house game engine.
• The half-baked attempt to cross-platform consoles with PCs
• The half-baked attempt to cross-platform mobile devices with consoles
• The merger of Live Service Games and Free to Play
• Game prices not following inflation.
• Everyone and their brother trying to take a major cut.

Shit is more complex and resource intensive than it has ever been, we’re hardly even looking to optimize these days if it works.

You get to choose from a couple of engines, who want a serious cut, or a free engine who has serious problems on consoles.

You need the game not only to pay for itself in sales, but in in-game sales without making it to gambley or making it too pay to win.

Adjusted for inflation, Mario Odyssey is $20 less at launch than E.T. was at launch for the atari.