Alternately, videogames now: I have a farm and it's the nicest farm of them all, and all the chickens have names and are demonstrably happy. Also I moonlight as an interior decorator for all my friends with whom I have deep personal relationships.
Just saying, we may be playing different types of games here.
Kovarex seems to be the only problematic one, and considering factorio is developed by a lot more people, it seems its mostly just one bad apple, but that apple is one of the owners and lead devs so
We finally got The Dark Fog in Dyson Sphere Program! It's absolutely a blast as well. I dunno if you travel to other planets/ systems in Satisfactory, but DSP is kinda like a 3D Factorio with Space Exploration installed. Not quite as complex though, cause the DSP devs didn't make you rely on random chance. When Nilaus says "I'm calling this done, because it will be eventually," you did something terribly wrong.
I found that the late game in DSP tends to center around hydrogen logistics, and it drags the whole thing down. They're still considered early access, though, and could fix this.
There's also more games being made now than there ever have been. People have a lot of choices.
The big AAA blockbusters do tend to aim for a different demographic than they did in the 80s, though. Probably largely because so many people who were kids in the 80s and 90s still play games.
I don't know what people mean by "the big AAA blockbusters" anymore. I mean, the biggest console around is the Switch, the biggest games on Switch are a kart racer and a laid back cozy town sim. This year's big action game from Nintendo is Zelda but now it's also Minecraft (or Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, more accurately). Their latest blockbuster is a 2D Mario platformer cashing in on the hype for the billion dollar Mario animated movie by having every level be a musical showstopper. The biggest PS5 "AAA blockbuster" is a Spider-Man game. The big triple-A story this year was everybody shunning Fallout-but-Star-Trek for Dungeons-And-Dragons-But-Everybody-Is-Horny, and both games are huge productions with ridiculous budgets and insane amounts of content.
I don't know what demographic all that is supposed to be for. Is that one demographic? I don't think that's one demographic beyond "humans who like it when they can see the money on their screen while playing their games".
The demons have taken everything. A rotting carcass fished from the city river signals the beginning of its true downfall. Someone is to blame, whether it be a literal demon, or the ones we call neighbors. This mystery will be my last singular devotion.
But the real challenge is going to be gathering clues inbetween watering my crops, researching new plants to grow, and crafting tools using a system of over 8000 materials.
Also alternatively: I am a dead sexy treasure hunter, and I go on adventures with my dead sexy girlfriend/wife where we climb over pretty ruins and find lost cities.
We've been doing that one since before there were videogames. Dead sexy treasure hunters have been a thing for so long the dead sexy treasure hunter we're all thinking of was a retro callback in 1981 already.