I think it's a problem of maturation of the industry. Gaming is following the same trend as most of the creative content industries. At first it starts out with a million different ideas, some good, most bad. Then they start to get funding and they start to look good and most of the bad ideas have been dropped. Soon it becomes big business with major publishers as the financial backing. Publishers don't like taking risks with their money and all you see is sequels and remakes.
Now compare that to the movie industry. 50s - 70s lots of great films, lots of bad films, lots of experimenting. Then came the 80s & early 90s. Starting to get formulaic but generally more entertaining and consistant. Then came the late 90s - today. Remakes and sequels. The only original films now are art and indie films with no budgets.
Early gaming, early 80s - 1990, every genre is invented, a lot of bad but a lot of games that form the basis of every game we see today.
Mid gaming 1990 - 2000, some of the greatest games ever made. Just enough budget that the games are getting a lot of polish and technology has advanced enough they're starting to look good. The art of games aspect is really stretching it's legs during this period.
Publisher oriented gaming 2000 - today, RTS & FPS, occasionally a Diablo clone. Lots of sequels, no risks involved, most independent developers are gone. We're just entering the remake phase now in gaming.
European developed games are the equivalent of art films, wide range of quality but generally more creative and a less risk adverse. An indies, well indies are indies no matter the format, sometimes great underneath but almost always look very poor and lack that polish that makes it easier for the masses to consume.
I hoping with digital distribution and all the free tools available to aspiring game developers that the indie gaming industry can really make it's way back into the industry. Still, it's a lot of hard work to release even a simple game and with most indie developers already working a 9-5 to pay the bills, it'll be hard for gamers to ever take their hobby back from the Big Money.