I'm not saying story is a bad thing. It's not, but it seems like a lot of devs focus so heavily on coming up with an engaging story and good visuals that they forget to actually make the game fun to play.
I think about some of the games I've played over the years, and a lot of my favorites either had fairly limited or even downright absurd plots that basically boil down to an excuse to make the gameplay loop happen.
Just a random musing.
I agree with your other points, but this part is simply wrong. 2024 has had some great releases this year: Unicorn Overlord, Balatro, Black Myth Wukong, Rise of the Ronin for starters. Palworld and Helldivers 2 dominated the first quarter of this year, and despite the current day complaining, gamers certainly got their $40's worth of fun on release.
Asians are doing a lot of heavy lifting.
They always had.
Bakuro got an American release.