For some people, the grind is the main attraction, especially if it's well balanced. Look at Path of Exile, that's one hell of a grindy game and people absolutely adore it.

Is the grind an integral part of the gameplay, flow and pacing of the game? Fine.

Is the grind a way to slow progression in order to make micro-payments more desirable? Fuck. That.

Or worse, a hybrid like Assassin's Creed Odyssey: a $60+ game that gets super grindy, but reminds you that you can opt into micro-payments to get a little experience or coin boost...

I really enjoyed it for the first 20 hours or so.

Morrowind was way more grindy than Odyssey (make 50 steps, a monster attacks you, repeat until the end of game). Odyssey just made all enemies within +/-2 levels of your own character, contrary to Origins, where levels were preset for each area.

I downloaded two mods pretty much instantly for Morrowind: no cliff racers and being able to run without losing stamina. Saves uncountable hours.

People love Path of Exile because it's essentially a slots machine.

Also, it doesn't have that high of a playerbase.

While I am not a fan of many F2P games, their popularity and impact are undeniable.

The trap that you should avoid falling into is assuming that's the only way games can thrive. F2P games are huge and dominate the conversation, but I think indie games are the best they have ever been. My favorite game last year was Into The Breach, and by all accounts it sold well in the same market that Fortnite dominated in.

Games are evolving in weird ways, but it's in a multifacted and diverse way.

Into the breach was a great game, but it is unlikely to have sold as well if it wasn't for FTL's success.

Eh, probably to some degree, but at least anecdotally for me, "new game from FTL dev" got me to watch the trailer, but the concept is 100% what hooked me.

Oh, for sure, I feel exactly the same way. ITB is one of my favorite games in my steam library, and that's the same way I discovered it. The argument I was trying to make is that a lot of people wouldn't have had the opportunity to be hooked had it not been for the "new game from FTL dev"

FTL was a Kickstarted game from devs with zero pedigree (to my knowledge) and it was also a indie hit. While I agree Into The Breach owes some success to the devs being established now, but I don't think you negate my point about this being a time where games of all types can thrive.