When Minecraft came out, it was hard to understand, not that good looking and only really catered to nerd gamers. There was no recipe book, no cute animals, no lush caves to explore, just an unforgiving Day-Night cycle and few, very creepy caves.
But those days are behind us. Minecraft is now considered a kids game and someone who bought the game as a grown up when it still was a grown up game now face ridicule and are “second class gamers” in the eyes of the developers imo. Not to speak of bedrock edition (eww) with its microtransactions and dumbed down UIs.
I remember making a paypal account for the express purpose of buying it after reading about it in a tech magazine (on paper - can you believe it?).
What do you think are currently games that are not focused on children and have great potential?
The judgemental attitude and self victimization detract from your post. You’ll find people to be friendlier and more helpful to you if you manage to tone it differently.
Anyway! It sounds like you want games that prioritize being interesting over being popular? Dwarf Fortress would be my immediate thought.
There is no judgement and no self victimisation in my post. Minecraft changed drastically from what it was and I‘m fully allowed to not like it.
But thanks for the suggestion dwarf fortress seems to be quite the thing to try. Will check it out.