>>15134303
Some of those games, especially Cuphead, sold primarily because they were able to game the system to get free advertisement from salty journalists who are bad at fucking video games. Others are practically a given because of their prior notoriety as remade/rebooted classics giving them access to a wider group.
Also, Crash sold well due to nostalgia, but it was a bad game: it was originally designed back in the day when nobody knew what the fuck they were doing with 3D games, so developers were able to get away with murder, so to speak. The games were terribly designed, which meant that the challenge of beating them was ultimately satisfying for those that genuinely stuck to it. When they were remade, they were met with mixed reviews, and the debate was ignited as to whether or not Crash was actually a good game. Nearly pixel-perfect jumps, unforgiving terrain and enemy placement, punishing trial-and-error gameplay, secrets that made little to no sense, and gimmicks upon gimmicks upon gimmicks.
That said, Crash is still going to live forever. I honestly hope for a good sequel, but it would undoubtedly be fucked up by Naughty Dog or Sony for one of 6 gorrillion reasons. Sometimes, it's just better to let dead things stay dead. The industry is overwhelmingly suffering from writer's block and creative bankruptcy, and all of these (((greedy faggots))) can't let shit go if they think it will net them a few quick bucks; half of the writing is done for them, and even if they have to eviscerate the character and turn him inside out to shit out narrative diarrhea for a game, they'll do it because it's fucking cheap and quick.
>>15134221
>>15134279
Most of these big (((publishers))) aren't going to listen to anybody outside their circle. Certainly not their customers. They don't know what it means to make a quality product for people to enjoy, and the shitty compensation developers that stick around get is implicitly boosted by the fact that they have a media platform to push their political views on. To them, it's a win-win: pay as little as possible to useful idiots that push the message they want to spread. Garbage products, developed by garbage studios, funded by garbage publishers, pushed on fucking mindless sheep.
As long as useful idiots keep making these faggots money, they'll keep doing the same predatory bullshit. Someone with a position of authority needs to step up and genuinely turn people off to the idea of preordering games, buying DLC, or purchasing lootboxes and in-game content; it won't happen unless something drastic happens, such as a major economic depression, but when it does, every single one of these publishing corporations collapses.