Comment by Julesman

What he says ONLY applies for AAA games. Metrics and research push every game into the same few buckets. Just like web design best practices imply that every website should be roughly the same.

Chasing what 'works' the best has little to do with stickiness. Yeah, you can be addicted to Candy Crush and play it endlessly without any joy at all. But that kind of stickiness is a problem and not in the soul of gaming.

Real stickiness comes from some kind of authentic joy. And coders and marketers don't know how to put that on screen.