alt Hacker NewsWe don't really want creative games. We do want fun ones. Fundamentally, games are fun mechanics paired with a narrative that supports the mechanics. Note that the narrative is supportive, and fun is primary.
Maximizing profit often points the gaming cos towards gating the fun behind a paywall, or teasing the fun that could be had behind the next payment. It turns out that players don't find that fun (see Star Wars Battefront 2).
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Not really. Top ten spots for highest grossing games sold are half comprised predominantly of low-budget, gameplay innovative titles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam...
Tetris + Minecraft tied for first, Wii Sports at fourth, then Terraria at 7th, and Super Mario Bros. and Human: Fall Flat at 10th.
The other half are evidence to your point with possibly the exception of Mario Kart 8. But if we look even further down the list, we see a lot of once-small, indie titles with brand-new for the time gameplay or heavily perfected mechanics like Stardew Valley, The Sims, the original Pokemons, Wii Fit, Sonic, etc.
If anything, you're speaking to a very specific subcultural market of what I'd probably call gamer bros who are obsessed with getting good K/D ratios, streaks, and other Skinner-box adjacent rewards systems. The other large consumer markets include children who prefer simplicity with depth and the huge market of non-gamer-bros who are the ones buying Terraria and Stardew.
You're going to need a mountain of research to prove you can separate fun from creativity/novelty.