It has gone from being a creative process with blood, sweat and tears behind it to channel one's passion into something they would love for themselves into a soulless money oriented job.
That is also why so many indie games are amazing at their core when only one or a handful of people work on it.
It may not be the answer you are looking for, but capitalism does ruin a lot things. Many games are being created with the sole purpose of making money and putting everything else second that doesn't maximize profit because the suits that make those decisions, deadlines, budgets and monetization of games only care for one thing and it makes sense that things are being created to make money, but many of us have grown up in times where games we pure and full of passion.
You also shouldn't confuse devs with people that actually make decisions. Developers for the most part are fine, but developers don't decide that a trilogy of refreshed games has to be rushed out to meet deadlines or that talent is wasted to create cosmetic microtransaction items for stores instead of working on Half Life 3.
We should always call out shitty games, but not at the cost of developers who probably actually care about games, but then took a job where they work 12 hours a day for an idiot suit who has no clue about anything related to passion or art.
The best thing you can do?
- Buy indie games (or any good game that you consider great and has passion) that get good scores and love from lots of like minded folks.
- Skip 5/10 EA, Ubisoft, Activision etc. trash that is the same buggy microtransaction infested generic formulaic game every single damn time.
- Spread the word about games you love on gaming related websites/forums/social media (yes we all hate social media I get it).
- Don't harass developers, because the fish starts stinking from the Bobby Kotick head.
- Give devs from games that you love positive feedback and words of encouragement. Especially for smaller ones that means a lot
- Don't touch games with Season Passes or microtransactions, because that will start the downwards spiral (obviously there are always exceptions, but if you start spending money there they will increase it in the future and take more from you. If you give them a finger they will take your hand)
- Don't buy big games that you are probably not interested in just because they are on sale. Buy 9/10 or 10/10 smaller games that you hear every now and even if they don't seem like your games there is a reason why people love some of those games so much. It helps to get out of one's comfort zone to expand one's horizon and find new stuff to fall in love with.
- Your own mindset is also important. It doesn't help to obsess over the games that contribute to the "ruination of gaming". Yeah those games get a lot of headlines and talk, but that is also because the people who play good games are busy playing good games instead of being resentful on Twitter.
Does it instantly work and the industry will turn to better tomorrow? No of course not, but you also help yourself to enjoy more meaningful passionate freetime and over the course of a long run you will realize that there are more games you love than you would have thought possible and when more people do that than the money flows to the right people.