Ignoring the lack of updates if the game is buggy, games back then were also more focused on quality and make gamers replay the game with unlockable features based on skills, not money. I can’t count the number of times I played Metal Gear Solid games over and over to unlock new features playing the hardest difficulty and with handicap features, and also to find Easter eggs. Speaking of Easter eggs, you’d lose a number of hours exploring every nook and cranny finding them!
This is what it ultimately comes down to for me: the games are better, and they can’t go back. If the games from back then were actually better, then people would be playing them all the time. But the reality is that people seem to pull more enjoyment from modern games, which is why they keep going back to them despite the constant “they suck!” complaints.
And I feel that’s true now, like with the games I mentioned (BG3 and Anno 1800). And back then there were definitely cash grabs, like ET jumps to mind as the most famous example, but almost every NES game that was based on some kind of movie or other pop culture thing. It’s just they are better at grabbing cash now. But there are also plenty of modern games that don’t implement these addictive features, in order to keep siphoning money off of you, they are just fun and people play them infinitely more than going back to the olden days.
And, again, I don’t want people to get me wrong. I definitely agree that there is a lot of shit, especially dirty shit, where they abuse human psychology to keep people playing and siphoning off money. But I feel like it’s ridiculously overstated and people are also ridiculously blind to how much better gaming is now than it was “back in the good old days.”