These games still exist today, but come from small passion studies (much like early-mid Sierra)...and today, the number of games published is much, much greater than it ever was then. That is to say, generally only indie- or genre- enthusiasts know where to find the "good stuff" for any given category good, because the small studios don't have the marketing dollars to compete with the larger players or to cut through from "sleeper genre hit" to "genre hit," let alone from "genre hit" to "mainstream hit."

The genre games that do make it to mainstream are typically backed by distasteful in-app purchase schemes.

Many people have heard about "Dwarf Fortress" at this point since it's been around so long, but mostly only the "traditional roguelike" fanbase is even aware of games like "Cogmind" (an ascii game with incredible attention to detail that extends beyond being just a great game to things like thoughtfully implemented accessibility features and lovely crafted ascii graphics using its own open sourced ascii engine, RexPaint). Within that enthusiast crowd, though, it's one of those obvious 'oh yeah I know that game' games.

(Okay so my reply started out in good faith but then I couldn't help but use it as an excuse to gush about Cogmind[0] and the work of its author.)

But anyway, as a genre- enthusiast I don't really know what the best forums are for finding other hits in other genres. But occasionally I watch YouTube videos reviewing games similar execution to, say, King's Quest 6, and I really do think there's a rich library of high quality new games coming out in that genre.

Steam's recommendation engine has gotten better at helping you find what you're looking for, fwiw, but you still have to go looking.

A bookstore is probably a good analogy for the experience today. If you only looked at the books in the front of a bookstore, or only read the "popular" books, you might come to the conclusion that most books being written are crap. It helps to go into a bookstore armed with knowledge of what genres you like and which authors are respected for quality before you even get to the browsing stage.

[0] - https://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/