I'm starting to realize that I preferred when gaming primarily stuck to its own IP's & licensed games were largely considered low-quality & likely garbage. A good licensed game was the exception not the rule. Now many of our best game devs are working IP's from other industries.

I also despise the irony that a game like Dreams will give people all the creative control in the world to make absolutely amazing things, unfettered by conventional means and the only things that get coverage are related to pre-existing IP's.

Some people really don’t notice cause they don’t pay attention but:

Square Enix's entire western studio structure made a single Avengers game

Machine Games is working on an Indiana Jones game

Insomniac has half of their studio working on Spider-man.

Jedi Fallen Order was an action game being made by former God of War people who could only get it greenlit by it becoming a Star Wars game and the first thing Disney wanted to do was not have Jedi or lightsabers.

With the amount of AAA games shrinking and most studios becoming increasingly risk-averse the industry is tapping into “safe bets with established IP’s” which aren’t really safe at all (Avengers.)