Hope the demise of the Western AAA game industry comes soon.

Looking at SteamDB, only 4 games released in the last year are in the top 25 of 24-hr player count. Those are:

Helldivers 2. #6, highest player count in the last 24 hrs is 242k

Palworld. #15, 100k

Baldur's Gate 3, #17, 87k

Football Manager 2024, #21, 67k

Taking IGN's list of biggest games of 2023 (archive here - https://archive.is/yg2fP), and listing the ones on Steam:

Forspoken: 24 hr peak of 57

Dead Space: 570

Hogwarts Legacy: 8.5k

Wild Hearts: 127

Atomic Heart: 627

Company of Heroes 3: 3k

Sons of the Forest: 12k

Kerbal Space Program 2: 601

Octopath Traveler 2: 592

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty: 704

RE4 Remake: 6k

System Shock remake: 130

Minecraft Legends: 22

Jedi Survivor: 2k

Redfall: 58

Suicide Squad: 475

Street Fighter 6: 23k

Diablo 4: 4.5k

Starfield: 6k

The Expanse: 34

The Day Before: shut down now

Armored Core 6: 2k

Forza Motorsport: 6k

Lies of P: 2.5k

Payday 3: 357

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: 878

Granted, those numbers could change drastically when you factor in other platforms, but of those 26 games "most promising" games, 14 don't even have 1k concurrent players a year (or less) after release, and only 2 have above 10k. Sure sounds like you all are on the right track.