It’s because interest rates went up and the free VC money tap was turned off so all these companies have to actually turn a profit, so they’re squeezing us with every lever they control.

I concur. It changed the way I play games, especially last gen and indies.

I’ve gotten to the point where if somebody tells me that a game is 100+ hours, I consider it a con. I don’t want to dedicate the next 3 months of my gaming to a single game. And in my 20+ years of gaming, I’ve learned that no game truly has 100+ hours of content. Rather, they have 20 - 40 hours of content, stretched over the remainder of the filler in bullshit ways. These days, I’m ecstatic when I find a game like Guardians of the Galaxy. Tight, well written 20 hour experience that know what it is an what it wants to be. One and done. Love that game.

I hear what they’re saying, but I’ve just never heard of anyone trying to dismiss a game for being a JRPG. Sure, they have their style and tropes, and they aren’t for everyone, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who seriously claims that a particular game is bad because it is a JRPG, as opposed to a game simply being a bad JRPG.

It seems to me that between Sony, Nintendo, From Soft, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, and even, yes, Konami, Japanese gaming culture has had a huge influence on so-called Western gaming culture.