Different strokes for different folks. I've been playing MK8 for 9ish years on two systems. I don't expect World to be a step backwards, but it could happen.
I may have bought a Switch at launch solely for BotW (even though I had a Wii U), but that's not the only game I played, even if was the only game I owned for a bit. More games came later. Anyone saying "I'm only going to buy one game" is basing that off of what's available at launch. More games will come later, at which point people will make their value decisions.
People are losing their shit about Nintendo bumping prices for the first time in several gaming generations. Broad declarations of "never, not me, I won't!" There seems to be a large overlap between the most vocal and the following two groups:
Happy with your Steam Deck? Great! I'm glad another actual gaming company (Valve) has entered the hardware space. (For MS and Sony, gaming is just one part of their enormous portfolios.) Nintendo doesn't interest Deck folks. That's fine. I can't play first person or close third person games, and never liked RTS-style click as fast as you can games, so PC gaming has never been my thing. The impressive Steam library doesn't do much for me. That's fine. We all have options. Great!
People that just pirate their shit? Great! Piracy always has and always will exist. Companies have always fought back against it, and always will. Getting around those barriers is part of the scene. Remember when Sony lost in court against Connectix, then bought VGS just to kill it? I do. I was an adult at the time, and played a lot of THPS using a shitty USB gamepad on my computer. The world kept turning. Games are still free for those that want them enough.
The thing those groups have in common? Neither of them were all that likely to buy anything Nintendo. But any unfavorable news makes them come out of the woodwork to declare that they're not going to buy any of it even harder. Great! Just totally irrelevant. It's the latest chapter in the long running saga of the console wars. It's never been a good story, but does it ever have staying power. Yay tribalism.
Enjoyment/$ is the metric to use, or maybe (enjoyment/h)/$.
Or, as I stated, "worth the money." I'm not interested in turning it into a hard formula, universally transferable. As you noted, there's too many variables. I was stating that the money was well spent. That's it.
When I hit 360 hours in BotW, I asked myself, was this worth a dollar an hour? Yes, yes it was. That was almost 8 years ago, and doesn't take into account time spent playing other games, or the 7+ years of playtime since.
The fact that you're more angry at those 22.198 people than the fact that our election system has been a broken joke since long before the year 2000 and continues to be a broken joke because of the undemocratic Electoral College is kind of pathetic.
It's possible to be mad at both of those things... over and over... every fucking election cycle.
So then you still get to play them. The only people this affects are new buyers, which... scans internet will be approximately nobody, given the raging hate-boners on display. ¯(ツ)/¯
I know leaving your mattress outside sounds like crazy talk, but off-gassing is a thing, folks. Personally I would opt for leaving the windows open as much as possible over cleaning off bird poop.
Step 2. Recognize that if you're thorough and verbose, people's eyes will glaze over and they won't actually read what you send. Conversely, if you're concise and direct, people will complain that you're aloof and not sharing information.
Step 3. Resign yourself to things only getting worse as you get older.
Obligatory: