Ah, back when game development was managed by game developers who were gamers themselves and prioritized quality over min-maxing shareholder profits…
Or another way to look at it, is that it was the market takeover phase of capitalism where capitalists are willing to operate at a loss to corner the market and create their own monopolies (see Nintendo, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc). But once market grow stalls out they switch to the milking phase or enshitification phase of capitalism where they prioritize profits over everything else
Ah, back when game development was managed by game developers who were gamers themselves and prioritized quality over min-maxing shareholder profits…
Or another way to look at it, is that it was the market takeover phase of capitalism where capitalists are willing to operate at a loss to corner the market and create their own monopolies (see Nintendo, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc). But once market grow stalls out they switch to the milking phase or enshitification phase of capitalism where they prioritize profits over everything else
IIRC software development, including games, was a pretty gritty industry last century too.
It’s more a matter of having the luxury of space for bloat. (Most of the anti-user features are new, though)