"Block" games existed in the 90s, perhaps, but Minecraft is from 2009.

"Factorio" type puzzles may have existed, but nothing of that detail until 2016.

Part of the big advancements of the 80-90s was that the technology was advancing insanely quickly, which meant that things that were simply impossible a year ago were commonplace next year.

LEGO still exists, but the Lego of 2026 is not the Lego of the 90s (for good or ill).

Toy cars existed in the 80s, but the Cars franchise started in 2006.

Part of the problem is it's hard to see what will be huge in 20 years that already exists today.

You also have "sideways cannibalization" where something in one area never really expands to another: Harvest Moon never moved to PC/Mac and so there was an opening that Stardew Valley took advantage of, and now has moved way beyond. In a way it's "the same thing locked in time" in another it's not.

What do they say about there being only seven stories?

"Harvest Moon never moved to PC/Mac"

That's not the opening that Stardew took. It was only on PC because that's the platform that doesn't make you fill out an application to get dev hardware for.

The opening they took was Harvest Moon putting out increasingly uninnovative game after increasingly uninnovative game for years. Rune Factory innovated exactly once and then swore never to do so again (though they managed to produce RF4 so I do give them props for that. even if RF5 walked it so far back.)

Something about these games is very hard to pin down. See also: the millions of SDV clones, some even by huge players with lots of money, that don't make any kind of cultural dent.