> In my opinion, whether a game is enjoyable or not doesn't really rely on whether or not they were technically challenging to make.

I agree, but that's not what I'm saying. I was referring to cookie cutter games released by Ubisoft, the CoD franchise, and most sports games. They essentially use the same formula, sometimes even the same engine, year after year, and just upgrade the assets, and do some minor tweaks. Yet these releases are incredibly popular and people keep buying them every year. Similarly for lazy "remasters" for games released not even a decade ago. Now with AI upscaling it's even easier to just increase the texture resolution and charge half or even full price for it. It's practically a scam.

> I do know that a lot of the games that I really enjoy are not technologically "pushing the envelope" at all: caves of qud, cube chaos, kenshi, rift wizard, just to name a few.

Sure, and I enjoy many of those as well. A game doesn't have to be technically impressive to be enjoyable. But IMO these don't have the "magic"/"wow" factor that was so common back in the 90s. If you played Doom or Mario 64 when they were released, you were _mesmerized_ by what you were seeing. Yes, these were great games, but the technical wizardry was what made them stand out from everything else. The jump from 2D to 3D and hardware accelerated graphics certainly played a role in that, but it was also due to very clever algorithms than ran on the same hardware as other games that weren't as impressive.

Today VR can arguably deliver that "wow" factor, but that's mostly due to the technology rather than the games themselves. Even nearly a decade into the modern VR wave, there are only a handful of games that deliver an experience close to what many games in the 90s did.

I can basically think of only one example of a modern game that delivered that same feeling: Breath of the Wild. We were used to open world games, we were used to Zelda games, but we hadn't seen such design ingenuity and technical polish, especially on a handheld system. Tears of the Kingdom is arguably a better game, but it didn't deliver that same experience for me.

Ah sorry, I misunderstood you! I agree with everything you say in this comment. Although I do wonder how much of that "magic"/"wow" factor was due to me being very young back then, rather than those games actually being good. Looking at you, 1995 Magic Carpet.

I agree that VR tech in general is just "wow" at lot of the time, even if the games are not that great. But I think that "Hello Puppets", "Scanner Sombre" and "Superhot" were all really cool and innovative, even within the VR scene. I think there's still some technological innovations possible that to deliver more "wow" moments.

> Although I do wonder how much of that "magic"/"wow" factor was due to me being very young back then, rather than those games actually being good. Looking at you, 1995 Magic Carpet.

Haha sure, there are also cases where a game is technically impressive but not actually good/enjoyable. The real magic is when both of these come together.

I think it's still too early for VR games to be both (with a few exceptions). We haven't quite solved major problems like locomotion, motion sickness, and comfort, of course. Maybe a few generations from now we'll start to see truly mesmerizing experiences that are both technically brilliant and enjoyable to play.