I can't even play anymore. I've seen firsthand how the industry treats developers, and I cannot bring myself to send money into the pockets of the fratboy shitheels that run it.
Look at the new Assassin’s Creed game, which is a reskin of Origins, plus a dozen pages of “buy this shit!” The xp system is rigged to make it a slog and a grind unless you buy “boosts” and it’s a giant map filled with what amount to chores. I feel badly for kids who grow up thinking that skinner boxes connected to a publisher’s bank account are what games have to be, but I’m not touching that stuff.
Meanwhile there are great mid-tier games, indie games, and the very occasional AAA effort that doesn’t punish the player for playing. It only really gets hard when something like CDPR makes great games that don’t monetize outrageously, but also famously treat their employees like dirt.
Not that this is necessarily bad, Ubisoft has gotten really good at building these sorts of open world games, and the market seems to agree that having minor changes to the same formula is a good approach.