I would say every genre of media has this problem. A form of media might exist for thousands of years, but genre and fashion always evolve in new directions, because what's the point of creating more of what exists already.
Video Games were immune for a while because technology was changing so fast, but in the last decade or so its become really clear players don't care nearly as much about graphics as they used to.
People will quite happily pickup and play games from many years ago. Many of my teenage kids favourite games were made before they were born.
Oblivion is nearly 20 years old now and looked terrible at the time. (compared to other games that shipped at the time) Oblivion is a _big_ game not a polished game.
update: I found this screenshot and I think I was remembering Morrowinds characters.
Morrowind had very janky animations, but it wasn't too bad for 2002 otherwise. Definitely not top notch, but, well, look at faces in Deus Ex for another example from this period...
Oblivion had those weird faces but was otherwise pretty good actually, especially the lush outdoor environments.
There's a cave in France where somebody started painting a horse and 10,000 years later (but still tens of thousands of years ago) somebody finished it in the exact same style and technique. Novelty isn't required in art though it's currently prized.
