Well before we start with ageist yes it ' s a thing discussion . I ' d like to point out that a huge chunk of video games perhaps 6 or 7 generations were built on repetition and it ' s not due to limitations . At the time of NES , Japan had a hard time reaching to the North American audience with their Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games . Mainly because it involved grinding . You had to grind trash mobs in order to get stronger for the boss . This concept was simply alien to many people not just NA but Europe as well . When they asked the creator of the Dragon Quest series about this he commented . I wanted to make a fantasy game similar to real life . I wanted to give people an illusion of doing hard work and then reaping the benefits . doing repetitive work to get strongersmarterbetter is how humans functionSo you see it ' s not just a game design choice it was an actual game philosophy . Although I do have to admit that in modern games that philosophy is somewhat bastardized in order to disguise game faults and lazy design choices , cut corners and last minute changes . Oh well .