>>714868151
>budgets exploded at the start of 7th gen leading to death of small/midbudget productions as publishers either died or pivoted towards supporting only 1-2 huge franchises
>higher graphics and production value demands
>market has never meaningfully expanded, great if you're already running a successful live service game like COD or Fortnite or whatever that's always getting new blood from kids recruiting their friends, or Nintendo who at least makes a conscious effort to selling stuff for the whole family, but shit out of luck for everybody else scrambling for the attention of a few million people that actually spend money on lots of games a year but only have so much time

Too many games, not enough consumers to meet demand, only strategy is to try to get more money out of the existing audience, all in pursuit of graphicsfagging that only impresses a bunch of 40-50 year olds.
The most popular game on the planet looks like this.