The problem is:

Lazy developers.


Why bother to make up your own concept, do something unique and draw in people with a cool art style, new weaponry, unique locations, fun multiplayer/co-op options, or interesting gameplay when you can merely look and see what games moved a million copies, make a similar game, and push it out banking that you at least capture a percentage of that consumer base that keeps eating up FPS or 'historical war' shooters.

Its the same reason you see a deluge of mini games on the Wii, its the same reason you see hundreds of MMOs announced on the PC every month, its the same reason you get knockoff games that try to be like the Marios, Zeldas, Castlevanias, Halos, GTAs, Gran Turismos, and the like. Why pay a team of guys to make up a new concept when you can pay one guy to study market trends, look and see what 'cool features' those popular games have, and then incorporate them into yours?

Edit- Not saying shooters are fun, but what if you like a broad range of games? Chances are, your system gets stuck with this stigma that only kiddie games are coming to it. Or only shooters. Or that noone owns your system and it doesn't matter.

ampillion,

it's more like why bother to make up your own original concept when you're not sure it will be a success and might end up costing you millions.
what's the failure rate of new IPs? i hear like 90%

making games is about money and publishers follow the trend. it's our own fault for buying them anyways. they look at how much people bought WoW and Halo and what do you expect they'll do. i am guilty of buying some world war II games. you get what you buy.

I am also guilty of not buying Shadow otC and Okami. I bought Viewtiful Joe but it was used so Capcom didn't get any money. Oh well, maybe we're all playing too much video games anyway.

 Right, but that's still lazyness on the part of developers. Sure, they just are after money, and they want to make it. But I still don't see how you can make money making an FPS of any sort unless it's either something entirely new as far as gameplay/artstyle is concerned, or just really addictive multiplayer play. It gets to the point where you glut the market so much that people are only going to buy the ones with names they recognize or have played before.

    In reality, it's not so much our fault as it is theirs. Just because we buy a product doesn't mean we want ten more within the next year. How many people really own that many FPS games? You find maybe 2-3 that you really enjoy and play for quite some time. (Hell, on the PC, it might just be one, and mods and maps will extend the life out for more than a year.) Does everyone want to buy a new Madden every year? Doubtful, but they do so merely because they want the new rosters. You can't just purchase the new players, their face graphics and numbers and all that (yet anyway), you have to buy a new, full price game.

    So there's nothing wrong with our purchase habits as far as games go. (Downloadable content on the other hand, gamers seem to be terrible about, however.) Developers should have enough foresight to see when a certain genre is just too competitive for anyone to really make money on. That way, you'd see less of these shooters, party/mini-games, and poorly-plotted RPGs, and more things that might be wholly interesting. Most of gaming that's out there nowadays is merely derivative of other things we've seen before, hence why I've supported the Wii, it gives developers new ways to make games, or make new genres of games, or even those genres that are better left to PCs on cosoles. Hopefully we'll see some developers with balls step up and try to take advantage of these things. (Zack & Wiki style!) I'm not saying that people shouldn't have fun with their purchases, but the gaming market has been rather stangnant for years, and this is the kind of stirring it needs. When the stew's done, we'll hopefully have even more gaming choices then we've ever had before. Just hope money doesn't ruin the dinner plans, and everything on every system becomes the same.

I wouldn't be so quick to call lazy dev. It is its own genre. I know alot of people who cannot get enough of war games. If they didn't sell well then they wouldn't make them. The people have spoken.

I remember reading something about this. The reason there's so many games on WWII, is because it is kinda the perfect war to use. You've got a wide variety of vehicles and weapons to use, unlike something in medieval times, where you'd be limited to different saws, in WWII, you can have weapons that are vastly different. Also, the whole world was basically involved, so it allows developers to choose from a wide variety of locations. Also, compared to other wars, it has been greatly documented, so easy to work out what happened. Finally there's plenty of stories/diaries that developers can use to base their games on.

Finally, most developers for things like FPS, are likely to be American, and (IMO-don't bash me for it) they seem to like portraying themselves as the heroes/world rescuers etc etc. So why not portray Ohama beach were the American's (no, not the Canadians or British, they didn't do anything apparently) beat the Germans. Thus saving Europe. Unfortunately, cos it's only subtle really, these games sell well all over the world. Whereas, few people do games on Vietnam, because it is less likely to sell well in America. Same with other wars.

Present war games/hypothetical games will always sell well, because people like exploring an alternate reality, based on reality, kinda thing.

Well, I don't really blame the developers that much. I don't think they're lazy but some of them are rather inexperience. Take a good look at some third party Gamecube games and you would realize they basically got the job developing right out of college. But I see everyone's point. We are stuck in rut where developers are afraid of doing something new so they instead do something generically popular and sometimes do a half-ass job on it knowing full well they'll sell. Look at Spiderman 3. But who do we blame for that? Them for making it or us for buying it? Spiderman 3 probably reinforced their thinking and Spiderman 4 will be just as bad because they know everyone will buy it. As for variety in gaming, there is a good amount, we just easily overlook it because it covers a subject we're not interested in. So, next you're at a gaming section, look at the games a little harder, you'll probably find something.
And as for the poorly plotted RPGs, don't get me started. I used to be a Role Play Game nut-now, most of them are just horrible. The Mana series is a great example- I love Secret of Mana so much but all of the games released after just plain sucked. Even now, we have Dawn of Mana. Way to kill a series Square Enix.

The market speaks. If the war games sell well, there will be more of them. War games will stop being made whenever people stop buying them. Which won't happen.

I personally could use more/better flight games. Blazing Angels got my fill for awhile, but the controls were daft. I would go nuts if they revisited Aces of the Pacific or Over Europe, I loved those games(does anyone else remember these?) or even The Red Baron... but as for shooters, if they could find a way to make them more engaging it'd be nice. Also there is a title being developed for the PS3 that is on the US east coast as Nazi's invade(circa 1950's) that looks promising. At least COD4 heard our cries and finally left WWII.

BTW, in the Aces games you also could play as the Japanese/Germans and blow the shit out of the Allies ;)

 hmm, that's a great idea.  or how about medieval knights jarring with the backdrop in europe?  european developers really need to step up.

 all devs need to step up.