I put it down to what the industry has become and who the audience is.
During and before the Ps360 days, gaming was still dominated by enthusiast, hardcore gamers, so games had to appeal to that wide audience (edit: a game had to be an expert at one thing and sell that to the group of hardcore gamers that were interested) . Be this in the vein of good graphics, engaging story, or difficult/deep gameplay. Sure, you had your family friendly games, fifa and Cod, but they didn't rake in the money like they do now and with so little effort.
That Fortnite can make billions for releasing a few cheesy skins, shows who the target audience is nowadays and it isn't people who care about games. Now that gaming is fashionable, it's only socially acceptable play what is fashionable.
It's not doom and gloom though. What were seeing now is the Blizzard/Warcraft effect - Wow was raking in millions a month back in its hay-day, all because of the subscription needed to play. but the money was so easy to come by they Blizzard neglected its other franchises and look what happened...
I believe an instantaneous readjustment is on the horizon. When the MTX whales get bored and move on, or go outside again after lockdown, we will see the target audience shift again.