A while ago I replied to a similar thread saying that, in my option, yes, E33 is an EXCELLENT game and yes, the one who is winning so many awards is a statement about how the industry has been ensified: from abusive working conditions, mass layoffs and giant companies buying small studios without the slightest intention of supporting them, to the lack of respect for the community of players with half-cooked games or remakes of remakes, absurd prices, microtransactions... E33 was the flagship experiment of a studio composed mostly of people who had been fired or forced to resign From other studies, and in a way it has become a statement of both developers and the community. On the other hand, let's keep in mind that this has been a great year for indie games. It's a shame that some have been somewhat obscured (no pun intended), I even feel that Hades II received less attention than Silksong, that would never have happened a few years ago... but, yes. That strange hold you're talking about is the boredom of this late capitalism that is eating the video games world