Yeah the open world stuff is its own genre that obviously most casual gamers won’t even enjoy. I’ve gravitated towards that stuff more now because those games are usually of higher quality. I’ve also become much more of a story driven gamer as I’ve gotten older, and with it getting harder and harder to find a PvP game that’s of decent quality. I personally stopped giving my money to companies that had the loot boxes/battle passes who were charging large amounts of money for skins, character models etc. and still couldn’t deliver a product of semi-quality. Triple A studios make millions upon millions and it seems as though most of that money goes to the executives rather than paying overworked devs proper wages. I’m not an industry expert, but it appears that devs are also given often unrealistic deadlines and are rushed. The Star Wars battlefront games by EA were a great example of this. The devs who worked on the graphics side of things clearly poured their heart and soul into their work. The people on the financial side put in the pay to win mechanics and saw the quick and easy dollar signs for short term profits. The battlefront games would have made infinitely more money if they just put out a game that wasn’t pay to win, had balanced mechanics, and just let the quality speak for itself. However, casual gamers (and some hardcore gamers) with money bought into all of the pay to win mechanics and had maxed out stuff before everyone else who didn’t want to/couldn’t afford to literally pay to be better. It made people, me included, quit the game because it legitimately wasn’t fair. Someone did the math and when the second battlefront game came out, it would’ve taken someone 100s of hours to get one stat maxed out vs. spending money and getting it instantly.

I still like playing casual games to have fun with friends or a few quick games if I’m in the mood, but I’d still like my casual game to have some quality to it. I’ve had plenty of friends who are casual gamers and told me point blank they don’t care about quality in cod, Fifa, Madden, etc. they will still buy the games no matter what. These are people that legitimately ruining the triple A industry, and ruining a lifelong hobby for gamers who actually care about quality. It’s had a rebounding affect on indie games which I’m happy about, but triple A studios have the resources to make genuinely mind blowing experiences, but refuse to because their shareholders see short term profits and are forcing devs to make what equates to slop.

The battlefield 6 beta was great if I’m honest and I’m excited for the full game to out. It could prove to triple A studios that you don’t need to put slop in your game to millions of dollars. Putting out a high quality product could get casual gamers to recognize the quality, buy the game, and keep playing it even without all of the cartoonish skins, and battle passes.

This is just my 2 cents. I’m 26 and my first memory is playing a video game when I was like 3. I have a lot of sentimentality with the hobby.