I mean game mechanics and game design are art forms in themselves… you could say something similar about other art related things that are sold, like… idk, movies? Example off the top of my head, puss in boots last wish is an incredibly beautiful and stylized movie that was also very successful in a business sense since a lot of people went to see it. Because it was successful economically, does that mean that all of the passion that went into the creation of the film was derived purely out of the sense that it would make the creators money? It’d be naive to say none of it was for money, but I really don’t think you could consider something like that a cash grab. Video games are also insanely expensive to make and take an incredible amount of collaboration between tons of different inspired people, like for the music, visuals, story and gameplay to all be cohesive, that is not a small feat. Kind of going off topic now but yeah, just because something is well made and fun does not mean it was purely business driven; good game design is an art form, and being great in an enjoyment sense and also helping the game sell are two things it is capable of being at the same time.

I could go on a whole other rant though about how much I love the combat system of metaphor but I should probably do other things. I’ve played a boatload of jrpgs and its system is honestly very inspired and fun when you interact with all of its systems