[TheFoxFence]

Originally Posted by Scatty

It's rarely a product made out of love today, from freaks for freaks, as was used to be said back in the mid 90's. It's a business investment today and the game has to bring money which is all the criteria the games are made upon - better graphics, bigger games. There're rarely cases when game can be created as desired with fun and creativity, without time pressure and restraints from "above", so the result is thinned out content.
Well, the genre of video games has been chewed upon for many, many years after all. The high period was the beginning and middle of 90's. Earlier or later ideas start to run out, but the games are simply too profitable still to let go, so same and same ideas are being pulled out again and again from you-know-where to suck out that last bit of profit out of them that's still there.

Best and sad example is Arcannia - A Gothic Tale or also called Gothic 4 which has pretty much nothing to do with the previous games of the series, which was the tombstone put on them.

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I think your arguments is quite valid for the mainstream of the game industry, but there has also been a big increase in so called "indie games", which often is games with one "author"/creator. I guess these games are more likely to be "created as desired with fun and creativity" and "without time pressure and restraints from "above"".

However only a indie game maker can confirm if that's the case or not, but on a speculative level it seems reasonable.