The center of cultural gravity has definitely shifted. In the 90's we were still firmly in the mass-market model of doing: if you saw something new in gaming it

The center of cultural gravity has definitely shifted. In the 90's we were still firmly in the mass-market model of doing: if you saw something new in gaming it was probably through the TV or a magazine, and it was presented as some exclusive, earthshaking experience that you were buying access to like a movie ticket. Nowadays it's much more common to learn about something through "influencer" media, and part of the appeal is not within the game content, but in the game's affordances as a virtual world: being able to play with your Discord friends or the Twitch streamer you watch, and how much it supports roleplaying and "content creation". A lot of gaming is also purely online-competitive, too, a phenomenon that relies on widespread broadband connectivity and isn't really about graphics - witness the popularity of online chess. The experiential games that hit big and stay memetic for long periods have mostly been indie lately: the AAA stuff has nice graphics and courts a certain niche, but it just washes over the market without much lasting impact. Altogether, there are a ton of things that make it so that teenagers can be hyped, but not about the same things in the same ways. It's widely accessible stuff, and less clearly driven by the consumer-electronics relationship.