Games make money by appealing to players.
That alone would lead into games that appeal to the greatest possible mass of players.
Which means in principle that all points must be deleted for this game which might distract other kinds of players from it.
Which konsequently would result in "mediocre" or/and "totally generic" games - just for the reson not to distract anyone from it. Or, to put it differently, not to distract the greatest possible mass from it - to result in the greatest possible mass of buyers buying it.
Now, the interesting point is what might this greatest possible mass of buyers want ?
Assuming that (as I personally suspect nowadays) the greatest possible mass doesn't want anything too much challenging - because "stoppers" might distract them from playing (although not from buying), this might result in totally generical and mediocre games at the same time. Because everything is deleted that might be too much challenging, in this theory / assumption.
The result would be games like Dungeon Siege, or what Blizzard does.
Or the Sun and the Bild in the Newspaper area.
They all sell, no doubt.
Let's take the opposite: PS:T. It is challenging - not only because you must read much text, but also because of the themes in it, the whole scenery and layout is challenging, it has no MP (at least I don't remember it), and it is challenging from and intellectual point of view perhaps, too.
If a company was aiming to build and sell a game that appeals to the greatest possible mass of buyers, PS:T never ould've happened.
It's like Musems and exhibitions: They are intellectually challenging, at least sometimes, therfore they do NOT attract the greatest number of visitors, but rather a smaller parts of a country's society (also it depends on the popularity of the museum/exhibition, of course).
Assuming the vast majority of gamers prefer MP, this would mean that most game MUST have MP. This not because it makes the game much better, but ONLY to appeal to a greater set of (possible) buyers !
So, the argument, that games should be made to appeal to players, might very likely lead into a non-innovation phase of gaming. No inventions anymore. Nothing new, because everything new might be sort of challenging, which might in result distract possible customers / buyers.
The only development one would see, then, would be some sort of "micro development", which would incorporate new innovations in homeopathic doses.
For the industry, this is very, very good ! Big money with few costs ! (Because inventions and for that, development and required testing, consumes most of the money).
This is the way EA works, especially with its sports games, I hear. Personally, I can't say, because I'm not interested in sports games, that's why I fall out of this market.
For the consumer, this might not be so good. Or, to put it better, not good for the non-conservative parts of the mass of consumers.
I think we all know, why PS:T is so unique: In part, because no-one ever would've done such a game. PS:T is in my eyes an insanely lucky case of development. No current company would release *such* a challenging game - because lots and lots and lots of buyers would find it too challenging and therefore not buy it.
In the Drakensang forum, only few days ago someone complained that he had to read all of the test instead of it being spoken. He found it - what's the word ? arduous, says my dictionary. Wearysome.
Instantly I knew which kind of games he would NOT play ...