This is what annoys me the most.
Well written, good games, MAKE MONEY.
Literally every one I know of, made fucking CASH.
I guess the problem is that SHITTY games still makes cash!
Making money is just not enough, when you run a business and are motivated first and foremost by profit.
Not to sound like an old commie, but while the developers designing the games might be basement computer nerd art types, the final product will almost always acomodate a business model first and foremost.
Streamlining is a good way to not only make cash, but make *as much as possible*
Making more than some, making as-much-as-possible means filing away the sharp, narrow parts, and make it accessible to more potential customers.
FO2 was well written, but would not and did not sell as heftily as FO3. I went around recommending FO2 to people, back in the day, and they told me "it's not for me" after having tried, most complained about the slow pace and the ammount of "boring text" they felt forced to read. Good writing - pearls before swine
The exact same individuals had a super-blast with FO3, and found absolutely nothing wrong with it. They loved the speed, the action, the constant boom-bang-bang-boom - and they drop-kicked their money into Bethesdas face
This is the eternal problem of it, and the exact same thing you also see in the movie industry. Sure, truly intelligent material will generate an income, but streamlined and simplified stuff will generate *much more*, so from a profit point of view - why on earth would they forfeit a single dime?
(this is also why a tendency is for more intelligent, "deep" entertainment to come from "indie" devs, since these teams are typically dominated, through and through, by creators and artists, putting artistic expression before profit, simply because their publishing company has not yet reached that... state... yet. Bethesda was once like that, small "basement nerd team", putting emphasis on detail, writing, lore, art, expression. Now they're not)