I think this is a bit disingeuous. I probably fall into the category of "quality of developers in that field have went down", I've been working in games for a decade.
Many of the problems with games are to do with game engine architectural decisions made 20 years ago - anything based on Unreal Engine has code that was last touched in the mid 2000's for example, and some of that is _not good_. Lots of issues around sloppy drivers, bad memory management stem from an overuse of the "old way" of doing things, which is driven by the programmers you're glorifying in your post. Some of the smartest people I've worked with are still working on their first game, and some have been in the industry long enough to be veterans.
The quality isn't deteriorating, the market has expaned hugely. Companies that are now considered "small" would have been considered enormous productions 25 years ago, and those companies are pushing out incredible quality experiences. Companies that are absolute behemoths now are putting out iterative works that people _clearly_ enjoy because there are alternatives to them and yet they buy Call of Duty because it's fresh, fun, exciting, nostalgic.
> I don’t personally know any other field whose products have deteriorated over time like the game industry's
Ignoring the fact that I disagree about the quality having fallen (stray, tunic, and vampire survivors are some of the best experiences I've had gaming, and they're all relatively new), people lament the same way about everything. Cars aren't built like they used to be, household appliances used to be more robust, movies were better in <X> time, children's toys are just ads for <y> show, there's no good music these days. Look on any thread here and you'll see the same thing (and if you speak to your parents they'll say the same about things that were better when _they_ were younger)
People buy call of duty because of the name regardless of the current quality vs an unknown title.
Movies were better, they made less movies which increased quality, had better actors who had more talent (singing, dancing, acting). Kids TV shows are created to sell toys. Products are cheaper and made to be thrown out vs repaired.
Profit keeps going up, quality goes down while prices try to stay the same.
Many of the problems with games are to do with game engine architectural decisions made 20 years ago - anything based on Unreal Engine has code that was last touched in the mid 2000's for example, and some of that is _not good_. Lots of issues around sloppy drivers, bad memory management stem from an overuse of the "old way" of doing things, which is driven by the programmers you're glorifying in your post. Some of the smartest people I've worked with are still working on their first game, and some have been in the industry long enough to be veterans.
The quality isn't deteriorating, the market has expaned hugely. Companies that are now considered "small" would have been considered enormous productions 25 years ago, and those companies are pushing out incredible quality experiences. Companies that are absolute behemoths now are putting out iterative works that people _clearly_ enjoy because there are alternatives to them and yet they buy Call of Duty because it's fresh, fun, exciting, nostalgic.
> I don’t personally know any other field whose products have deteriorated over time like the game industry's
Ignoring the fact that I disagree about the quality having fallen (stray, tunic, and vampire survivors are some of the best experiences I've had gaming, and they're all relatively new), people lament the same way about everything. Cars aren't built like they used to be, household appliances used to be more robust, movies were better in <X> time, children's toys are just ads for <y> show, there's no good music these days. Look on any thread here and you'll see the same thing (and if you speak to your parents they'll say the same about things that were better when _they_ were younger)