I never understood this complaint outside of pure snark. Over the years I've noticed many games have pretty bad tendencies, simply because they've floated to t

I never understood this complaint outside of pure snark. Over the years I've noticed many games have pretty bad tendencies, simply because they've floated to the top through what essentially amounts to luck (also modern games have "balance changes" that often push novelty + profit over actual fun). However, most bestselling games always have that one core part that's pure beauty, and that's what people keep coming back to. If you don't like opening theory, that's fine. There's plenty about chess to be enjoyed outside of memorizing theory. I play chess tactics or alt gamemodes exclusively because of this. Not planning to be a chess professional. But the creativity is vast in this space. If we want to make better games, first start by breaking down the core parts that are good and the core parts that are bad, then iterating on it, just like how many disciplines (both scientific and artistic) operate.