Maximizing profit often points the gaming cos towards gating the fun behind a paywall, or teasing the fun that could be had behind the next payment. It turns out that players don't find that fun (see Star Wars Battefront 2).
Maximizing profit often points the gaming cos towards gating the fun behind a paywall, or teasing the fun that could be had behind the next payment. It turns out that players don't find that fun (see Star Wars Battefront 2).
Tetris + Minecraft tied for first, Wii Sports at fourth, then Terraria at 7th, and Super Mario Bros. and Human: Fall Flat at 10th.
The other half are evidence to your point with possibly the exception of Mario Kart 8. But if we look even further down the list, we see a lot of once-small, indie titles with brand-new for the time gameplay or heavily perfected mechanics like Stardew Valley, The Sims, the original Pokemons, Wii Fit, Sonic, etc.
If anything, you're speaking to a very specific subcultural market of what I'd probably call gamer bros who are obsessed with getting good K/D ratios, streaks, and other Skinner-box adjacent rewards systems. The other large consumer markets include children who prefer simplicity with depth and the huge market of non-gamer-bros who are the ones buying Terraria and Stardew.
My point is that there are bifurcated consumer markets and you only spoke to a narrow subset.