Well, remember that I framed these groups as publishers, not developers. And I think they delivered some of the best, most consequential titles of the 6th and 7th gens.

Bethesda brought us The Elder Scrolls III-V, Fallout 3, and New Vegas.

Ubisoft brought us Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Far Cry, etc.

EA brought us Dead Space, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2/3, 007, Lord of the Rings, Burnout, Battlefield, etc.

Activision brought us Tony Hawk and presided over the golden age of Call of Duty.

It would be difficult to talk about the finest games of that era without these companies. 

Thats all fair, you do you. Tho it bears mentioning that all of that sounds like it has more to do with yourself than it does the games themselves if im being honest.

I play less AAA games but its mostly due to life. I dont have the time i used to have to invest in it, theres too many AA great games out there, and of course, money reasons. Other things have taken priority. But every now and then a AAA game blows it out of the water and reminds me whats so fantastic about big budget games when done right, like BG3 or Elden Ring.

As publishers (not developers) they still release good games regularly, but I have to agree their importance has mostly dwindled. They no longer release generation defining games anymore 

They are visually too 'loud'

I very much agree with this, cramming too much on a little screen. I adore the emptiness of the landscapes in SotC and BotW. 

I now play exclusively in VR, being in the game solves the problem of cramming too much in a little window, plus hardware limitations still keep the unnecessary clutter away in VR. Stereoscopic 3D and parallax makes it also so much easier to keep track of all the effects.

Plus it also solves the 'less advanced' problem, adding interactions instead of taking them away. Hitman WoA on PSVR2 is amazing, I would never want to play that on a screen. 

Flat games were hitting a dead end for me, I never finished GoW Ragnarok, tedious. last AAA (flat) game I've bought, meanwhile got over 100 PSVR2 games.

I just find hilarious when I see people who complain about AAA games talking like they were playing AAA games all the time before starting disliking them.

I like AAA games but I'm not going to only play AAA games all the time or I would play TLOU2 immediately after playing Spider-Man, doesn't sound healthy or fun because a AAA game is way more demanding to your time and attention than an smaller game.

If you aren't up for that that's cool you do you but it's not the games fault that you bought something that wasn't made for you and keep talking about AAA games when you don't play them anymore is as much of a waste of time as you playing those games.

It's going to be a problem for the game industry at some point I think because younger kids have less and less of an attention span due to Tiktok/Insta feeds dopamine hits.

It's hard to even get them to sit down for a full movie which is only a 2 hour investment in most cases. Probably why GaaS are taking off so much, you learn one game and just stick with it forever.

So you might end up relying on older people in their 30s/40s/50s etc. to play those more traditional games, but those people also have kids in a lot of cases which then kills their free time. I'll be honest I still haven't played through all of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

My attention span likes smaller, indie stuff and retro 2D. Modern games are so full of things, so dense and want you to invest so much of your life in order to fully enjoy them that it's nay impossible for me to gain entry. But I will if I feel the game is worth it. GTA 6, if it lives up to its predecessors, would be one example.

My last AAA game, unless Hears of Iron IV counts, was Dragon Age: Origins. Also my last physical PC game btw.

Ok you win :|

Seriously though ~2009 was a great time for triple A games, my favs were Batman Arkham Asylum and Colin McRae's Dirt2

Yeah this is an issue for me too, I often just get bored after a while of playing through dozens of hours of mostly filler.

I miss when AAA games were allowed to be like 8-20 hours of focused content without all the extra BS. I know there are still games like that, but it feels like bloat has become a major and prevalent issue, with so many games trying to have like 50-100 hours of content, but then most of that content being dull and repetitive.