>>12019516
NTA but while that's a factor it's more complicated.
IMO the problem with AAA games in threefold:
1) The development costs of games has been exponentially growing each generation and has reached a point where producing one takes a massive budget, AND the consumer's tacit expectations of each new console generation is that AAA games look considerably better than the ones in the gen before, which is perfectly understandable given the price of admission to play them at least on consoles is buying a new system.
This implies higher costs both in money and time.
2) Most game publishers are publicly traded, which means their shares get bought and are in possession of investors or investment firms that generally DO NOT GIVE A SHIT about the longterm success of the companies and are simply speculating on increasing their shares' values as explosively and fast as possible so they can get richer by selling them to a new bunch of investors looking to do the same.
This essentially killed AA games, because the publishers' owners would rather make a few big bets and cash out over playing the long game with potentially a smaller ROI.
3) And finally, diversity quotas and the american government (among others) directly financing the production of politically correct media also tends to decrease the quality of the games.
Not because they feature diverse characters, but because they're not designed to please the actual consumers (E.g. They tend to be ugly and preachy as hell rather than offer entertaining game mechanics and stories that resonate with most players), but an hypothetical future market that never materializes, in my opinion not because of the lack of diverse characters, but because the games made for political reasons tend to SUCK or be lesser than if providing ENTERTAINMENT was the priority.
That's why the small minority of games with diverse stuff that aren't shit are generally indie and made by people who wanted to make something fun.
