What I'm tired of is articles like these that try to make out the video game development past as some artistic endeavor, when it was almost entirely geeks fucking around with things they found fun. There is far more "art" in games these days, which I think is cool. We have a lot more innovation and design exploration, it's just that the major categories have been explored heavily. Plus people that want innovation have developed very niche tastes which means to mean that niche you have like a few hundred people as a market.
Additionally, this "what happened to game design" is a refrain I've literally heard every year for 30+ years now. Here's the thing: if you have fun with a game, most of the time you want to keep playing that game. I just finished Mad Max (late to it!) and it was awesome, and I want to just keep playing it, but there is nothing else in there except finding the few % of places that I didn't completely explore before. But I'd kill to have a DLC for it or a Mad Max 2 that is just more of the same.
There is far, far more exploration and experimentation now than ever, and if you think otherwise, you are looking at the past through rose tinted glasses.