Why are games so boring?

I’ve noticed recently I play waaaaaaaaaaaay less games than I used to, and I play them a lot less often too. It’s not that I have less time or something, in fact I have more time now as a NEET than I’ve ever had, but I just don’t find a lot of games that interesting any more.

I’ve also noticed that I buy almost no AAA games any more. Looking back through my purchases, the only new AAA game I’ve bought in over a year has been Starfield. I’m a degenerate Bethesda fanboy, so that was bound to happen, but not a single other AAA game in the whole of 2023 excited me as far as I can remember, and it’s been similar to that for a long while. I think the only reason I really get that excited for Bethesda games is that I’ve been hoping that they’ll manage to recapture the same feeling I got originally playing games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim.

Honestly it just feels like the only good thing left in the game industry is indie devs making fun little highly focused games. I’ve found a lot more of those kinds of games in the past couple of years than any AAA game company could ever hope to make. It’s just getting sort of… tiring. I really hope things get better. Less microtransactions, games not filled with 5,000 low effort DLCs, and game prices not being pumped even higher by studios who keep spending more, and wanting even higher profit margins.

Can’t really think of a way to round off, so rather than some depressing conclusion, I think I’ll just give a tiny little list of some cool indie games made by devs who actually care that you should check out:

VCB - a cool circuit building game, great if you’re an autist like me
VTOL VR - a really fun VR flight sim, made by a guy who was originally a KSP modder
Tunnet - MASSIVELY underappreciated, great little game, it’s like being a networking engineer, but in caves
Nuclear Option - another flight sim. Pretty fun, very arcade-y
Carrier Command 2 - a pretty fun little fleet/air force command game. Great with friends. Has VR support, but I haven’t tested that
Lethal Company - if you don’t already know you’re living under a rock (probably based)