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Notes -
I can relate.
I think it's nostalgia: creators have trouble finding new ideas, so reuse old ones, but since consumers are desensitized, less exciting parts are cut. Hence Genshin's rewards without the quest, slice of life's wholesome moments without pain, etc.
I don't think putting back the less exciting parts would work, even though they're important (particularly the delayed gratification that yields longer-lasting satisfaction). If that's all it takes, there are already more than a lifetime's worth of old RPGs and niche animes/movies. I think we need "breakthroughs" that create new genres (or popularize previously niche genres), and that requires (most visible) creators to regain their creativity.
Why aren't (most visible) creators creative anymore? I suspect it's partly because of centralization of distribution: there are creative artists that you don't see, or potential creative artists that give up (or don't start) because they don't expect to be seen. Also because of LLMs, modern tools/techniques and asset packs: they help creation but not original creation, and creators that start relying on them become too lazy to stop. Also because of homogenized culture, and people too embarrassed to express themselves. Ultimately, these are all speculation.
You make a good point about us running out of ideas. Novelty might be needed because all consumption makes us tolerant to all similar consumption. If there's only so much enjoyment to be made from each kind of stimuli (because one builds tolerance), then socities general competition in making new content will cause mass desensitization over time.
I consider densitization a cause of degeneracy. People who always want more and more sooner or later end up doing or engaging in weird things. Stronger stimuli being created also means that other people build tolerance more quickly. I think the set of new things which can be created is quite limited, since it appeals to a limited set of things which the brain sees value in. But I did think of another solution - and that's hindering the process which builds tolerance. It's hard to explain how one would do this, but when a person says "Let that sink in", they're essentially saying "feel the weight of this stimuli instead of reducing it".
I agree on centralization. It's harder for "small players" to create, just like it's hard for new companies to get started. So everything ends up getting ran by a few giants, and these giants do not experiment much, and they only appeal to the average consumer.
As tools become standardized, the things you can create using them become standard as well. If I make a game, I will likely use pre-existing libraries, game engines, and design principles. Everything becomes building blocks to build 'new' things from, but creating novel building blocks is difficult. Essentially, I'm saying the same things as you, just in slightly different ways. I find it difficult to add further insight. It merely annoys me that these dynamics exist, and that many are blind to the limits imposed by them. They only see that "technology is getting better", and then they assume that this means everything new is better than everything old, and that going further in the same direction is pure improvement (that no tradeoffs exist)
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