Comment by m_fayer
Strongly agreed. When I think of the best Nintendo products the words “fun” and “play” spring to mind.
AAA gaming on the other hand, either resembles sports, shallow short-form media, or Oscar-bait melodrama. Very little fun to be had.
What ever happened to fun and play?
Singleplayer AAA gaming on top of all that feels like work, the older I got the less those games kept me playing because I don't want to spend 3 hours running errands to be rewarded with an item/spell/skill.
The melodramatic storylines are also pretty grating, there are a few games with good storytelling but most are some rehash of "this world has been destroyed/is in the process of being destroyed, in the aftermath a hero is about to rise and save it" so if the mechanics don't feel fun right from the get-go I lose interest completely.
The most fun I have with games are the ones with a very iterative game loop (roguelikes for example), or social/multiplayer games, anything with a lot of replayability, and the constant feeling of improvement is like crack to me.
A surprising example I re-discovered last year after only playing it for a while some 15 years ago is Trackmania, got even some friends hooked on it to play hot seating trying to beat each others time. The game loop is short and intense (about 1-2 minutes max), has a high skill ceiling, and you feel yourself getting better at a track each time you play it, nailing some very tricky part that felt impossible 30 min before is absurdly satisfying.