Very true. Sadly game dev is a risky endeavor at the best of times. Steam/other storefronts are very noisy environments for devs with little spare change for marketing. On the flipside, digital distribution and storefronts mean that it’s way more feasible to self-publish than it was twenty or thirty years ago. At least, as far as I’m aware. I know there were standouts like Cave Story in the early days.

Some YouTube videos came out that launched both into wider discussion. Both never had proper sequels or successors, so they stand as unique experiences even twenty years later. I don’t say this to diss modern Bethesda, but that they are both distinct enough from Oblivion and Skyrim to have staying power in their niches.

Daggerfall Unity makes that game playable and smooth on modern hardware, and Morrowind modding projects like Tamriel Rebuilt and Project Tamriel (just released an Anvil expansion!) bring in new and old fans alike. OpenMW does for Morrowind what Unity does for Daggerfall, although stock GOTY Morrowind still runs fine IIIRC.

AAA may be all but dead, (so far gone that even E3 died) but indies have been in a perpetual golden age since Shovel Knight and Undertale came out. And if boomer shooters and Morrowind/Daggerfall can have a modern renaissance, it can happen to other games/genres too.

In my experience with TF2, many popular community servers have common-sense rules like no slurs, cheats, etc. The great thing about a player-run server is that, if you want, it can be stricter than official guidelines, as Valve for example is pretty hands-off beyond the obvious in-game cheats. It allows pockets of the community to shape the experience they want to have more adeptly than official servers ever could.