Older games definitely operate differently i.e. they don’t assume you need constant dopamine hits to maintain your focus so there is a lot more “breathing room”

Recently we have a discussion about Final Fantasy Tactics where some person got quite offended by the idea of some grind. In tactics game. Japansese tactics game. Released 28 years ago. Which i'm still baffled about since most modern crpgs also include grind, and i'm not even mentioning mmo's.

Also grind apparently gives tons of dopamine considering gacha games exists and are popular as hell.