What I mean is what the audience really want/desire. From what I see from western developers are that they making games with political correctness, self censorship, targeted at small non-existent modern audiences or looking for a long term revenue stream (i.e GAAS). There is no love and passion in those games.
Yes labor and tech costs are insane in the west. I guess that they could outsource to China now that they have the capacities to reduce costs. AI is another thing.