This is hyperbole and nostalgia baiting, to be honest.

Is the simple, baiting addictive behavior, lazy game design prevelant in the industry? Yeah, of course it is. But Witcher 3 also exists, and the same company is working on a new game right now. Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pillars of Eternity 2 both released this year. While technically it was for most of its life an “indie” game, Star Citizen/Squadron 42 exist.

Do most games suck? Yeah. But they did 20 years ago, too. There’s some degree of truth to most games more rigorously attempting to follow certain examples to easy profitability, sure, but gaming- and pretty much every human endeavor, ever - has always had a few big dreamers pushing the envelope, driving innovation, changing our expectations at a fundamental level... and a bunch of hacks trying to copy them and get paid.

The magic isn’t dead. Gaming wasn’t inherently or intrinsically better a couple decades ago. Your perspective as an individual is probably different, though.