> There's evidence to suggest players, particularly younger ones, are spending most of their time on these titles - sometimes referred to as "forever games".

There was a report the other day that cited something similar for games on iOS, they called it "evergreen titles". The games that are popular have a habit of staying popular.

But what the "forever games" and "evergreen titles" have in common is they cultivate habitual spending and extreme dopamine addiction, so their popularity might be being artificially propped-up by inadequate consumer protection laws in the first place.

> New hits took less time than ever to reach their first $1 million in revenue — 106 days — but competition from evergreen titles meant there were fewer of those standouts than before, according to Appfigures data.

> Overall, he says, the number of people playing premium titles isn't increasing, but the cost of making them is.

I don't buy this. I think it's in part mismanagement. There are so many more tools to make games these days, and there are probably a lot more solo developers and indie games than ever. I think AAA studios are mismanaged and have bloated themselves for no good reason.

Large game studios have forgotten what games really are (or we need a new word). They are supposed to be a challenge that you overcome. That is the product --a puzzle, a problem to solve. In the case of action games, the action itself requires skill, and acquiring that skill is the challenge.

As far as the Doom, the challenge has been watered down in the name of accessibility, something that probably costs the studio a lot of money. They could have stripped all of that down, and just offer an honest shooter challenge like it has before, but they are not making good creative decisions. They change the product and then they're surprised that people are not flocking to it.