List of AAA games since Deus Ex: HR that I have played and think are just great:
Prey
Batman: Arkham City
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
LOTR: Shadow of War
DOOM
Civilization VI
The Evil Within
XCOM: Enemy Within

Partial list of Indie games from the last decade that I have played and think are just great:
Antichamber
Recursed
Darkest Dungeon
Into the Breach
LIMBO
Grim Dawn
Slay the Spire
Don't Starve
Sunless Sea
A Hat in Time
Yesterday
ABZU
This War of Mine

My first point being that I simply disagree with you about the decline in quality of single-player AAA games. My second point being that there is a bigger number of fantastic indie games of a wider diversity of genres than ever before in gaming history.

The whales and phone-gamers and cosmetic-dlc-purchasers and the pre-orderers and the micro-transactioners... none of them are ruining gaming. They are actually pumping money into the industry in such huge amounts that tons more people are making games than ever before. Yes, that means there are more sucky games, but it also means there are many many more great games too.

I recently read a paper that pointed out that a funny effect of the world's population growth is that there are actually more blacksmiths right now than at any other point in history. Mind-blowing! Strikes me that a similar sort of priciple is at play here: so so many more games are being made that it can feel like there are fewer and fewer good/great games being made. But I don't think the numbers bear that out.

Cheers.

Still, some genres are just dead in the water. Whales don't put a dime toward them, AAA don't care, indies are perhaps unprepared to take on the ambition..

Where are the Ghost Recons, Hidden & Dangerouses and Operation Flashpoints of today? Tactical realistic single player FPS is just .. dead. As far as I can tell. Or maybe none of these just make it onto GOG, but I wouldn't even be able to make a fishlist entry for one of these games since I don't know any.

Individual genres rise and fall. Big ol' sprawling RPGS seemed dead for a while there, but now they are positively thriving with the D:OS games, Witcher games, and more. And whales had nothing to do with the dearth or the resurgence.

Quick, run to your tinfoil hats while repeating there's no such thing as conspiracies.

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2363228/samsung-philips-and-infineon-slapped-with-eur138m-fine-for-chip-price-fixing

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/04/toshiba_fine_lcd_price_fixing/

https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/memory/samsung-micron-sk-hynix-hit-with-price-fixing-suit/1/

Cynicism aside, there is a lot of truth in what you're saying. Also sometimes its just good to vent every once in a while :)!

Lots of tl;dr in this this thread, but there's good games and bad games today just like there always was. There's WAY more PC focused stuff now than there was 10 years ago though, so I think we're better off now than we were.

I 100% agree that we NEED regulations for loot boxes and other related crap.
Here in Australia the solution (to me at least) is to declare that any game that has loot boxes gets an automatic R rating from the ratings board.

Wait are you saying that's the law now Australia? Or are you saying, that as far as you're concerned, that's the solution you find fitting for dealing with lootboxes?

I am suggesting that the solution I posted is how the problem should be solved in Australia.

Wow, breaking news.
(Sarcarm not at OP.)

but what makes those games good and have they advanced beyond prior games.

For example Prey 2 was scrapped and replaced by Prey (2017) due to claims of petty politics.
Doom looks like the same run and gun that we've seen many times* before but with nicer graphics.
I could go on.


* apart from those people that weren't even born when quake 2 or even Doom 3 came out.

You seem to be talking about games you have not played. I made sure to only list games I have actually played. Someone else who has also played the same games could very well disagree with me. I'm just stating my disagreement with the OP's statement that no good AAA games have come out since DE:HR. My list is simply to explain which games I'm talking about.