cannonfodder, you seem to have very little insight in to how the games- and movie industry works... yet you use Hollywood productions as reference?
When a studio signs contracts for making movies, they very often do so with 3 or 5 movies immediately.
When you use the Transformers sequal as reference, you fail completely to realise that when they made the contract of doing the Transformers movie, they signed a contract for all movies, it's not like they make one movie, then someone else just "pumps out a sequal".... same goes for Christian Bale and the Batman movies, when they decided over 8 years ago to make a new Batman, they sat down and made a contract that he would be in three movies. Same for Tom cruise and MI movies, wether or not there will be a 5th MI movie with Tom, all of them were in the initial contract, written 15 years ago (although in the case of MI, I wouldnt be surprised if they first made a contract of the first 3 movies, then with a reservation to expand it if the movies were succesful and if good enough movies were being produced for that franchise)
The games industry works a bit different, but there is the same plan behind everything, same long-term commitments within studios and publishers. Of course money rules (what else?) and as long as there are X millions happy paying players to buy any game (any product!) there will be a company making that product and selling it.
We're living in the generation of modern shooters now, it will (might) change or fade, or morph in to something we never predicted, but obviously it won't stay like this forever. Or actually, as I have compared earlier, it will, but we'll certainly see more new innovations in FPS games as well. BF3 launched the FPS genre in to what can at least be considered the "second birth" of modern era shooters (CoD4 being the first) and if BF4 will be the closing chapter before we see a new real generation of shooters, we just have to wait and see. Customers are like voters, with an interesting dilemma:
- As long as you buy the games, you support the studios and help them create new innovations and create new experiences for you. At the same time you also support them in keep doing what they are doing. Much like voting for a party, you give them the tools to grow strong and push new ideas, but the things you don't like your party doing will also keep going on...
Just don't spend too much time thinking or analysing why companies take their franchises in either direction, it's just games. You either play them or dont play them. We're about 5 years in to the current generation of shooters now, and fatigue is setting in. Just have faith that evolution within technology always, always happen, and that it will come sooner than you expect.