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.
When wow came out the devs working on the game wanted to got home to play wow. Today you have diablo 4 devs that have no idea how to play the game while someone thought a lets play video is a good idea because she was a fat lesbian.
You can't make a fun game if the ones that are making it don't have passion and have no idea what makes a game fun.
You only have templates and checkboxes. Make good graphics, make sure is inclusive, long cinematics, add an Ubisoft tower, lockpicking minigame, card minigame, fast travel, block or/and dodge mechanics, crafting etc.
Want to know what is worse? Before, in the 90s and early 2000s, we had innocence, optimism and passion. There is no optimism or innocence anymore, everyone is terminally online, everyone is deep in to politics. You can't make fun games anymore, even if I was to lead a game I'm way to blackpilled to make a fun one.
What a product manager does can easily be replaced by AI but they are also there to put pressure on devs. AI can't do that.