I just wondered whether game developers will develop more conservative PC games regarding specs because of the difficulty to get components these days ?
Or will they continue to develop ultra-high looking visual games regardless of the problems to get certain graphics cards and other chips ?
This would require some kind of self-criticism - and I personally doubt that people like Kotick are able to do that, only looking at records of profits.
Ages ago I argued that editors of gaming magazines are so much … "living in an ivory tower" … because they always have the best of the best hardware to use for their reviews are are thus not able to see views from the standpoint of someone with lesser good hardware. It's like the driver of a formular one racing car not being able to understand why traffic in towns is so slow and why traffic jams happen - and how to deal with them while siting in an affected car ! - at all.
I fear that developers have a similar proble : Driven by the so-called "graphics whoires", they just cannot imagine the problems of people who just don't have the money or chips to get games, which require ( ! ) the ultra-finest hardware - to run. Example : The ports from console games, currently the port of Horizon Zero Dawn …
I think it would depend on the type of games, but generally, beautiful graphics are appealing and is a marketing argument for a game, except a very few strange indies who seem to stick to old graphics.
They certainly won't consider a temporary shortage in their strategy, not for games that require several years to make anyway.
It makes little sense to make one's own engine, almost all games rely on a 3rd-party engine (sometimes, it's developed by the parent company or in a different department, like for ex. Bioware using EA's Frostbite). Many RPGs use Unity, some Unreal. So they depend for the most part on the efficiency and performance of those engines, even if they can decide whether to use such feature or not (most allow the user to turn them on/off). I have the impression they test their games on several PC configuration to make sure it's fine.
Simulators (especially flight) will always shoot for next gen when they're developing because realism is key for those games. DCS is a sucker for high-end system, always has been (unfortunately, that comes from poor engine optimization, being based on obsolete technology). They certainly don't care much for lower-end systems.
Not sure what you mean by "graphics whoires", I don't know that term.
Is that annoying? In the 90s and early 2000s it was a crazy CPU and GPU race, and hardware was quickly obsolete. But these days, you can usually keep your system for 5+ years and enjoy the games. Typically I update the GPU after 3-4 years, and I'm never buying the latest ones, so the price is reasonable. It won't cope with all options at "FULL" on flight sims like DCS, but for most other games it's fine.
I don't trust most review magazines.