I don't think it can. Far too many people are all too willing to throw money at digital in game currency and there's been so many series that went down this path. There's also the issue of franchise hording like with Disney and EA(but that would probably be closer to an anti-trust issue). The reason why game journalists bitch about no EZ mode is because there's a gamut of people who want to pay to get past roadblocks just like in mobile games.
There's next to zero chance that we're getting a new breath of fire and BOF6(the mobile game) will be the series headstone. Tales of series is heading the same way with how much Arise has been pushed back and the big focus is on the mobile installments. Pokemon is already critical with how much the mobile version takes precedence over the main line games to the point where the main games are now half finished rushed pieces of software so the mobile versions have a host to draw more assets from.
When you get to the point where the are only a handful of companies in existence, the political ideologues tend to be drawn to it because there's next to no competition and hence the establishment is easier to control and they're protected from their mistakes. So Microsoft buying Bethesda and Obsidian probably is the worst outcome if you like WRPGs because they're going to do what Activision did to Blizzard and gut it and replace the people with corporate slop from HR.
You have to shake shit up with hiring practices and addressing anti-trust issues because then you start hitting the problem areas where shit can be abused. If the government mandated that you can't lose access to your software even if you get banned from a service or requiring companies to provide an offline independent version free of Service Subscriptions, then you start reverting to how shit was and allowing players to have more freedom over their software again. Right now we're entrenched in treating software as a service rather than a product you buy because of convenience.
you are again conflating different things.
first of all, the market works on supply and demand. it's one, if not
the basic principle. if you oversupply the demand, you gonna eat the cost and implode. if you don't satisfy demand someone else will and your customers spend their money there, and good luck operating with no money. where do you think "go woke go broke" comes from? unless you're ok with burning millions to lecture your customer base about trans rights, it will inevitable kill your company because you
can not ignore market demand forever. you either change course and produce something your customers actually are willing to pay for or fold, it's that fucking simple. and it's equally simple when it comes to things like monetization, business models, genre, whatever.
the market is also not a unified blob with a single taste, you will always have different companies catering to different demographics where's money to be made. that's why takes like "X ruined Y" are simply stupid. something is popular because a lot of people like it and there's a lot of money to be made, and the market doesn't care one bit if you sit in the corner and screech "stop liking what I don't like!" unless you and other people are a big enough group with enough spending power to make it feasible to be catered to. do I want a AAA mmo about eating cornflakes? maybe. can I sustain a company creating such a game for me? probably not, because it's simply way too niche. sucks but it's the way it is.
for the same reason I give zero fucks if franchise X goes mobile or microsoft buys two companies which produced 1 or 2 good games many years back and a lot of shit since, because they bought companies, not the genre. why do you think people literally throw money a larian? again, basic supply and demand. it might not be another KOTOR or new vegas, but if you value brand that much you'll probably be just as happy with the latest fallout or last of us.
it's the same shit for software as a service. if your customers are willing to rent your game on their phones because they think it's a disposable product and it's cheaper to do so, that's where the demand is. however, this is also an issue with companies producing way above budget and are scrambling to make ends meet. they've been complaining about this for years, and there will be an inevitable correction (not a crash, but you gonna see contraction and consolidation, which is already happening. this is also normal market behavior, not some zionist globohomo plot).
or, as another example, what do you think is gonna happen with every company thinking it's a genius idea to open their own store front? 100% cut, what's there to not like? can't be worse with all the streaming sites popping up, I mean when your customers are willing to pay 10 bucks for a whole buffet of entertainment, why wouldn't they spend several times that amount to each get a piece of it? or everyone doing a mobile game you're supposed to waste your waking hours in? money and time are apparently infinite...
in the end, a healthy market will correct itself because it simply can't function otherwise, and as much as people complain about mobile, steam or companies owning a lot of IPs, it doesn't prevent anyone else to make good games and sell them - when there's demand for it (or they say fuck it and do it for free as open source). but, like a lot of things this is not gonna happen over night.
Going to have to agree with this one. Mobile game mechanics have been incredibly pervasive in video games, and in the mind of the consumer in regards to what's acceptable. I've had far, far too many people bonk me on the head lately about how amazing Genshin Impact is, even though it has the same pitfalls as every other gatcha game out there (Time gated resources, heavy emphasis on pulling characters from a luck based system). What especially surprised me is how people would both tell me that resin as a mechanic is great and shit at the same time because "the developer could change it", and constantly arguing that because Genshin Impact is a "generous" game that it's somehow okay. I feel like I'm arguing with WoW players who are convinced Blizzard will fix it "next patch".
You could make a case that this is what is efficient for the market though; this is how you make money. It does seem to me though that it encourages a level of stagnation when you have nothing but these giant companies that have license exclusivities. Sports games have been garbage for a long time probably for that reason. I think the consumer ends up losing out on it. Not the only thing I find pervasive though.
We can speak of certain design trends, where a whole bunch of games needed to be open world and waste your time walking from point A to point B doing nothing of interest. Battle Royale games were a big fad for a while and still are in some way. Looter shooters and "games as a service" AAA games are still a thing and I can't bring myself to be interested.
We could also talk about how many franchises, including gatcha games, became waifu games over game. Xenoblade 2 has ridiculous character designs and it seems like most of the blades are designed to be waifu material. Trails of Cold Steel goes hard with waifus/anime tropes. Fire Emblem is pretty much a waifu game while Advance Wars bit the dust. I fucking love giant anime titties, but it strikes a cord with me when many franchises I like that weren't known for that kind of thing try to step into that territory, or old characters are brought back with "new updated designs" with some big upgrades up there.
I take it both statements were not from the same person? it's not really surprising that different people have different opinions.
but since you brought it up, what
are mobile mechanics? "Time gated resources" and "heavy emphasis on pulling power improvement from a luck based system" (because that's what characters are) are at least 2 decades old, if not more, and I can't remember many people running around with mobile phones in the 90s.
as I said somewhere else, it's just a business model, and you can get fucked over in every business model, it has nothing to do with where it comes from or where it's ubiquitous. there are people who pay repeatedly for content droughts in WoW, a sub based game with microtransactions on top (and shit content inbetween) and it's highly debatable how complete full price games with multiple season passes are - and that's if the game doesn't bomb and you sit on a paperweight that cost 60 bucks (if you didn't shell out for the deluxe edition). maybe people really are dumb and want to be taken advantage of, who knows.
what it comes down to is if you personally get your money's worth or not, and that can happen with full priced games or gatchas. some people are stupid enough to spend hundred if not thousands on it where they don't need to while others get there without spending a dime, just like they buy the biggest edition of every AAA game to consoom without really playing it. if they don't spend it on games they spend it on other shit, people have been stupid with money for centuries, and there were always people willing to take advantage of it. the sad truth is you can't fix stupid.
and most of them are consenting adults allowed to vote, drive, drink and depending on the country allowed to own a gun, if they want to be retarded I'd say they have every right to.
stagnation, well, it never lasts forever. fifa 21 pretty much bombed, madden has been a laughing stock for like ever, netherlands just banned fifa boxes, and if you really just wanted to play some sportsball there's still PES, plus plenty of older game that didn't stop working. in that regard it doesn't really matter how much EA assrapes their licenses. same way there are other games than fortnite, and dota before that, and WoW before that one, after CS was a thing.... you get my drift. the proliferation of indie games is also a thing, it's probably never been easier to make games and get them (crowd)funded than now.
what I would be worried about tho is when taste inevitable shifts, I take a surplus of big animu tiddies over brown and bloom and edgy grimderp everywhere any day.
