[Broken_Hippo]

If you want AAA games, you are going to have a safe game. You get the same with movies - Bigger budgets cause safer behavior with less risk taking. You wind up with a pretty game, a somewhat safe story (that they think will sell) and gameplay they think is just good enough to keep you going.

It isn't that the other games are bad, though. It isn't like we are talking "handheld camcorder student-written movie" vs "polished hollywood blockbuster" but more.... Beautiful painting by a mostly unknown artist vs beautiful large, publically displayed and privatly funded artist. Big budgets get you more assistance and more/better tools and more space and more human help and more connections.

It is probably important to remember that a large portion of a blockbuster's budget is advertising. Advertising is often 50-100% of the production budget and I'm guessing AAA games have similar advertising budgets. I'm not sure how a large advertising budget gives you better products, though it might get you more folks if your game is online.

Of course, I'm guessing if you limit your search to FPS games, your experience might be a different.