Honestly, at this point I don't even know who to blame anymore, is it DEI merchants, **** poor employees who have quietly quit their jobs because game development isn't what it used to be, etc.? The list is huge.
Genuine passion projects, where the focus is on the end result in terms of the game and how it plays, seem to be few and far between these days. A lot of it seems to be about sending an ideological message or finding ways to keep people spending money on microtransactions for as long as possible, despite the fact that most of the time these purchases do not actually give the player a better experience.