I’m only making business card sized games now

The real exception is gambling games.

And I did think along the same lines (in a very minor way) with arcade games. Pinball - where skill let you prolong a game gave way to video games (like pacman or tetris you mentioned), which quickly got too hard to keep going. And it went further when games like gauntlet kept you feeding quarters in a pay to play way.

But at that time, we got atari and nintendo and so forth. Pay once, play for a long time. Kids grew up with this, and parents worried about the cost of a cartridge.

But the current crop of games is free, yet blatantly money oriented. Plants vs Zombies pre-EA vs post-EA comes to mind. Add grinding and then pay to not grind.

Yes, a little rose colored. But in vegas you can actually register as a compulsive gambler and the casinos will not serve you.

> the major gripes are

Ah, yes, I agree with that at all. You can feel how hard the balancing is from how they kept changing the existing characters, basically, trial-and-error balancing.

> leading to the mess of DaS 2/3

DaS 2 is a good game, if taken on its own merit. Its just that compared to DaS 1, it was a step backwards (certainly in terms of world and level design). DaS 3 I really like. It has a lot of missed opportunities in terms of the world and the world is less interesting because of it (I also largely feel that being able to bonfire teleport from the start is to blame -- in the first one, no teleport, connected level design and scattered merchants meant you had to learn the level layout because you would travel through it a lot), but overall, its a lot more refined than the earlier games in terms of mechanics and controls and the game itself was pretty good. At least, I don't call it a mess. I do like DaS 1 and BB more (maybe even DeS too), but I don't dislike it at all. I do wish for an Armoured Core game though (and Tenchu, although Sekiro scratches that itch for now).

I don't fully agree that the only real progress is in graphics. Yes, there are many uninspired games out now, but there is plenty of progress being made, in my opinion, outside of graphics, certainly in things like branching storylines and just in general games are mechanically more refined (camera and controls of 3D games are now a solved thing, back in the early days of 3D, both were terrible) and certainly if you look beyond the AAA games, there's a lot of creativity (story, gameplay mechanics). But even the shiney graphically fancy 3D games like God of War managed to pull together an experience that is more than just graphics. However, I do agree that many less-inspired AAA titles focus on visuals at the expense of everything else still, I just think there are enough alternative options that I can ignore those games without missing anything and still having more games to play than I have time for.

> it's difficult to find games where player interaction is even a base concept of its design, and thats the primary thing games introduce as a medium!

Agreed, too many games really do suck at this and I agree that this is where games could (eventually will, IMHO) shine compared to other types of entertainment, but they're certainly not there yet.

I'd say such blanket statement is disingenuous as well. I can understand that playing complex games (like the ones you mentioned) can be mentally draining, but I don't believe a simple shooter or racing game would have the same effect.

And the same is true for watching videos - it all depends on the content you play/watch. If I'd be watching a video of someone teaching quantum physics, then I'm sure I'd also find myself mentally drained afterwards, even more so.

> equating videogames to outdoor activities is again disingenuous

Well, they are obviously different, not only because of the social component (which, as you wrote, is deeper in team sports) or health (but the balance is still shifting due to VR). They are also different because games train the mind, while sports do not.

> IMO Video games are essentially alcohol without the liver-effects. Yeah it's a lot of fun in moderation if you are in control (OR if it doesn't pull you in like it does to addictive personalities) but they can pull you down a rabbit hole too deep to climb out of.

Pretty much anything is "esentially alcohol without the liver-effects", if consumed without moderation. An adult person should know their own limits and be able to stop an activity, before it pulls them in, regardless of the type of activity.

It had a fraction of the budget and development man hours of Yooka-Laylee and yet came out better in pretty much every conceivable way. The controls may not be as tight as Celeste's but it's the best 3D platformer I've played in years.