Because modern AAA games are almost always garbage, and the types of good CRPGs that you are asking to be made are not garbage.

Your question is like asking: "Why doesn't McDonalds serve gourmet food?"

I don't see the sense in the question.

A better question would be: why do legions of gamers keep buying modern AAA games in huge numbers, despite the fact that said games are crap?

The "AAA" label on a game is a warning: it is the single best indicator that gamers have to know that a game is not worth buying. That is not always true, but it is true most of the time.

This.

Don't you think that games like Persona 5 make a good counter argument to your simpler mechanics statement on jRPGs? If you want to put it in historical terms then western RPGs have improved in complexity along the years too, it's not a fair comparison to say FFVI is more simple than The Witcher 3 right?

You also mentioned FFXV as an example of jRPGs getting more intricate due to the influence of western games, but, isn't FFXVI a jRPG then? It probably lives up to the traditional combat-exploration-level up mechanics and narrative of the genre. So if FFXVI is a jRPG, why state that such games have simpler mechanics? Why state that it's an easier to design and cheaper to produce genre? (FFXVI may not be the best example here as it was a nightmare to develop). The point I'm trying to make here is that the genre of a game doesn't directly correlate with its complexity or ambition in design, therefore with its production costs; and that production costs alone don't explain the "scarcity" of western RPGs.

If the issue at hand here is open world vs non-open world, then that's another story, but I think that what the topic questioned was the sporadic launch of triple A RPGs. Games are as complex as their developers want them to be, it's not an issue of east vs west design because that line is getting increasingly blurry as you mentioned right? If you want to explain the higher production of jRPGs compared to RPGs it's probably worth taking a look at their respective target markets. The Japanese audience has always been very keen on jRPGs whereas in the west the RPG genre hasn't been that successful and it's had had (amongst other things) to add action elements to appeal to a greater audience.

I consider Dragon Age Origins a AAA game and worth the cost. But i DAO is an exception. The majority of AAA don't worth the cost. A low/average budget RPG tends to have more content, RPG elements and hours of gameplay.

DA:O was also almost done when EA bought Bioware. I Think Mass Effect 1 was too. ME1 had loads of proper skills. In ME2 all of them got removed and replaced with "pick the kind of ammo you want" as skills.

Funny you should mention it. DA:O was actually dumbed down for consoles. I beat the game on the PC first and then on the xbox 360.

If you remember that bridge puzzle in the temple of Sacred Ashes. That one was grossly simplified on the console version. I have no clue why they did that, but they did. Once you "solidify" a part of the bridge and stand on it, it can never get de-solidified in the console version.

Probably other things too, but I only remember that bit. It kind of stood out.

On PC in normal, you have Friendly fire and you can kill yourself with "devastating" spells, in consoles is different. I never played on console, but DA:O is a solid RPG IMHO. DA2 is a different story, DA:I is the "middle ground", not good as DA:O and not bad as 2

I actually wouldn't mind if they would change this is some games. :P
Build a whole town and watch it brought down by one arrant fucking trebuchet. :P

Here's one reason why WRPGs are harder to make than JRPGs:

In a WRPG town, it is typically possible for you to interact with NPCs in complicated ways; in particular, you can typically do the same thing to a friendly NPC that you could do to an enemy. This, in turn, creates more possible situations, and many of those situations might not be desirable from the developer's stand point. For example, what if the player decides to kill an NPC who is required for the main quest? Furthermore, in some WRPGs, NPCs can interact with other NPCs in complex ways. For example, in Wizardry 8, Ferro (the best NPC shopkeeper) could be killed during battle, because, for whatever reason, he will fight the other Rapax if he is included in a battle. Then, of course, there's Skyrim's dragon mechanic; how do you ensure that the dragon doesn't kill anyone important?

In a JRPG town, on the other hand, your interactions with NPCs are much more limited. JRPG NPCs do not participate in combat, and generally don't even have combat stats in the first place. Hence, the developer does not need to worry about the many unexpected interactions that can't occur; the player isn't going to kill the king who gives you the quest (unless the developer's written plot calls for precisely that to happen).

(I note that this doesn't apply to just combat interactions; what if the plot calls for the player to get arrested, but the player was able to charm the guards into being friendly? Again, something that can happen in WRPGs, but not in JRPGs (unless specifically written into the plot).)

Conclusion: JRPGs are easier to develop because there are far fewer interactions possible, and hence far fewer possibilities for unintended behavior (and bugs) to crop up.

Because the cost to make wRPGs to the mass market without cutting costs somewhere would be too high.

Why bother with...

Multiple paths to deal with a problem
Intricate settlings and lore
Meaningful dialog where choices actually have effects
A story with moral grey areas
Choices where the consequences aren't always apparent


...when the mass market cares more about...

Full voice acting cos they're illiterate retards
Polygon counts and texture detail
Lots of ways to kill stuff, preferably with nifty looking gore
Lots of stuff to blow up and looks awesome while blowing up
Big Boobs that that jiggle


...and you can cut corners and save money developing the former by...

Giving the illusion of choice by making all choices bad except one
Centering the game around a "chosen one" who is the only one in the world you can kill the big bad with some magic doodad with a cool name (ie The Can Opener of the Ancients)
Use prophecies so you don't actually have to explain anything in the game
Making "evil" = "Loud mouthed, rude and stupid"

...which saves more money for more important things like...

Explosions
Graphics
Boobs


And there you have it, the reasons why there will never be an AAA RPG.

@dtgreene Other reason is that wRPG have "billions" of ways of playing. How do you balance all play styles? In Morrowind you can easily kill a Dremora Lord at lv1 with 2 spells. Levitation + Bound Bow an in Daggerfall, there are a insane amount of ways to build a overpowered character.

If you have a complex spellcraft, alchemy and etc you can't easily balance your game making warrior with more HP, mages with more DPS but useless without mana, archers a ranged DPS and etc. In Morrowind, i've used a crafted Damage STR spell that have a insane area of effect and reduce the target STR to 0 to renders a lot of guards useless/immobile(then restored my STR due reflect) and killed a NPC that developers intend to be immortal, so i've picked the Royal Signet Ring that :

Constant Effect
Reflect 100%
Resist Magicka 100%
Resist Paralysis 100%
Restore Health 10pts
Restore Fatigue 10pts

In a "board" rpg, the master can use a plot device to take my overpowered ring or kill my character to not break the game, but in a computer RPG, this isn't possible. 10 health regen per second makes me near invincible. If you are a vampire, you will take up to 5 pts of damage per second while exposed to sun, so this ring can make you a "daywalker" and the unique drawback to be a vampire is the slow health regen while in sun. Even if you jump in magma, you still have time to cast a teleport spell.

I don't like immortal NPC's but i understand why they do this...

https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/6/63875/2324948-1732714_1299754913574_super.jpg

This pic sums it up nicely.

Why don't the networks make any more wKRPs?

That show was awesome!

JRPGs sometimes have similar balance issues. For example, Final Fantasy 7 has a materia system, in which you can equip materia to gain abilities, some of them passive. Taken to the extreme, you can set it up so that, when you are attacked, you counter attack *8* times. There's also a summon that hits every enemy for heavy damage 13 times (who thought *that* was balanced?) as well as a materia that, when linked with certain other materia, will revive you as soon as you die.

Final Fantasy 8, to my understanding, is even worse. In FF8, enemies scale to your level, but most of your stats come from the Junction system. Hence, if you intentionally stay at a low level, but spend the time to farm (or card mod) powerful spells to junction to your stats, you can have high stats at a low level, and since enemy stats depend on your level, the game becomes ridiculously easy. (Remember Oblivion's level scaling? That's not just a WRPG thing.)

Also, the Elder Scrolls series is not known for its game balance. Compare any Elder Scrolls game to any non-Bethesda WRPG, and I can almost guarantee that the non-Bethesda WRPG will be much better balanced than the TES game. (Oblivion feels more balanced to me than the earlier TES games, but even then there are things like 100% Chameleon.)