That's fine.
I did a trend search among the two terms on a few different platforms. I stand by saying there are likely as many that have heard of Soulslike as haven't heard of Metroidvania and vice versa.
In sales, Soulslike games greatly outsell Metroidvania games and have a higher market presence than all but Metroid itself. Whether or not Johnny Elite is actively calling The Surge 2 a Soulslike, the genre is sold across the market to a greater degree than say Salt & Sanctuary.
If one is not looking for it (so to speak), a given genre might not seem as popular superficially due to our natural bias as to what comes up in news/platforms one might visit and so on.
Yea, it's true of all genres. But it's important that one is more talked about than the other. That is the point. If there are 40-50 YTs about Soulslike games specifically then 20-30 about Metroidvania games (I'm just making these numbers up here), then it matters that Soulslike games are a hotter topic of interest. And that is of GREAT interest to marketers, developers, and publishers.again this is true of all genres. I recently seen people talking highly of Metroid Dread. Can't tell you the last time I seen people talking about and soullike game.
Of course.I think you already know this but I want to repeat, I'm not trying to claim no or small impact. I agree it had a big impact on gaming. Just not "ultimate game of all time" impact.