[SleepyMyroslav]

>There's no good technical reason for things to be that way

Of course there is. What people gets presented is look how new graphics is shining. What devs get presented is look how much less manual work you need to get this graphics out of the door. Look at any UE5 presentation aiming at devs. You will be able to see a lot of 'just do this and technology will handle the rest of it'. There is no going back to manually making 3-5 replacements for each and every thing in the game. And the same goes for lights every few meters of a game world.

As a gamedev I don't really care about the regular software. You can see that the main problem for devs is to get paid for it. All kind of schemes with subscriptions and online services and such were tried. People just don't want to pay for the software. The mentality is 'we will get it for pennies on a sale' is the same like with the steam sales. Or even worse people will choose 'free' version with 'promotions' and data collection and whatever else that saves them pennies. Look at 'free to play games' steam category for the example of the horror show.

Oh and I don't think devs are the saints there. You can find a lots of examples that prey on gullible customers or trick people to buy 'digital goods' they don't need or outright bad things with gambling addictions and more.

The only thing consumer can do is to only vote with their wallet and push their representatives to regulate. The stop killing games is an example of the latter. The former is often deemed inefficient but Imho it is the only thing that will separate surviving studios and the shattered ones. As you may see in the press the names and past successes don't save studios from closing their doors now.