As an example, I am confident that a true successor to Battlefield 3/4, unencumbered by EA's often terrible decisions, would sell very well. The problem is, it probably wouldn't make the same money as some microtransaction-ridden free-to-play dopamine factory, and so management wouldn't actually _want_ to make the game that the gamers want. (Though supposedly there is a game like that in the making -- I just don't want to get my hopes up because I've been fooled too many times.)
sure, I could, you could, every commenter on HN in the last 24 hours could.
Put them all together and we'd probably get a mess of genres with little overlap, or "worse": probably some already existing popular game that is hated by the gaming enthusiasts. Because we've long left this monoculture where any one game is the talk of the town for years to come. Or because the businesspeople actually are serving what people want.
You're also right that what enthusiasts want are rarely the most profitable. Blizzard can make 5 HD games and even MTX them up to high hell. Candy Crush is probably still making more than any of them. Just another example of how utterly diverse gaming has become (or perhaps, full circle where bejeweled on steroids still can make so much money).
As an example, I am confident that a true successor to Battlefield 3/4, unencumbered by EA's often terrible decisions, would sell very well. The problem is, it probably wouldn't make the same money as some microtransaction-ridden free-to-play dopamine factory, and so management wouldn't actually _want_ to make the game that the gamers want. (Though supposedly there is a game like that in the making -- I just don't want to get my hopes up because I've been fooled too many times.)