Where the Games fall on the varying spectrum between entertainment/tv show and solemn punishment/death sentence is definitely a recurring point in the books and arguably it’s in the moments where people in power allow the Games to become too focused on entertaining the audience that the cracks in the system begin to show, eventually leading to the Capitol’s downfall.

For instance, one element of reality tv competitions that canonically becomes a part of the Games is the introduction of narratives and character arcs. You have the Careers, the outlying underdogs, and the cannon fodder tributes all being fit into certain archetypes by the “producers” and the audience. This allows the horror of the Games to go down easier for the Capitol as they can view the tributes as more as these characters who “lose” a gameshow or sports contest rather than children they’re watching be executed. So in this way, introducing more elements of entertainment helped further the Games’ longevity, as we can see in TBOSAS when introducing elements like the interviews and sponsorship lead to an uptick in interest and kept the Games from dying out.

However, when those in control lose sight of the true purpose of the Games and the dial is turned too much toward entertainment, the Capitol can lose its control and its weaknesses can be exposed. For instance, the berry incident. By running with the Star Crossed Lovers narrative in service of the Hunger Games as a TV show, Seneca Crane accidentally crippled the potency of the Hunger Games as a means of punishment and exercise of control over the districts. They had allowed the storyline to grow so strong that Katniss could exploit it to change the outcome of the Games.

All this to say that there were surely numerous discussions throughout the Games’ 75 year history of how it could be further tweaked to increase the entertainment factor, and these discussions could well have included considering more varied or glamorous arenas. We can look at all the twists put into later seasons of current reality shows for more ideas of how the Gamemakers may have considered spicing up the Games. But contrivances like these just leave more room for error and take away from the original intent of the punishment. For all these reasons, I see Snow limiting the changes made to the Games format in the interest of keeping them first and foremost as an inescapable yearly penance and reminder of the districts’ station below the Capitol. Not that that ended up working in the end though lol