> some of my favorite games carry a deep sense of intentionality. For instance, there is typically not a single item misplaced in a FromSoftware game (or, for instance, Lies of P -- more recently). Almost every object is placed intentionally.

That's a pretty specific and one-sided example. There are tons of good games that don't rely on elaborate item placement (e.g. many Bethesda games are great because most items are useless decorations, they broke that rule in recent games, giving the purpose to clutter, and it made them a lot worse). There are tons of good games not relying on this intentionality at all, they're either literally random cool ideas thrown at the wall, or even procedurally generated.

That’s a fair critique of my comments! The space of fun games is large and diverse.