First of all. I don't consider action open world games like Skyrim as RPGs. Only open world ACTION games. I can't consider a game that a character can be a archmage without any magical skill and that you can kill the emperor and few seconds later join in imperial legion. Morrowind in other hands is a pretty solid RPG. The same for fallout(not 4)

All RPGs that i will probably purchase in this year come from small developers like PB and Paradox and i personally don't like jRPGs.

...because they go with whatever the current trend is and keep pumping out whatever sells - in this case, open-world action games?

What's a wRPG?

Western RPG. jRPG means Japanese RPG. Is only a classification. For example, Final Fantasy XV is a jRPG. Gothic is a wRPG

Seems a bit discriminatory. We are just lumping all western cultures and history into one bag then? What about Japanese inspired US based RPGs?

Different genres. Short story long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_rvM6hubs8

I would actually classify games based on their style rather than their country of origin. For instance, I would categorize a game like Pier Solar or Cosmic Star Heroine as a JRPG despite being made outside of Japan. Similarly, Wizardry Gaiden 4 I would classify as a WRPG despite being made in Japan, particularly with all the NPC interaction in that game (though I believe you can get around that just by killing most of the NPCs, something that is generally not possible in JRPGs).

They aren't classified as the origin of the game. The are classified as the origin of the genre. Everyone in Europe and America were building similar rugs, the Japanese were building similar rpgs. And now, we have a genre title to help folks know what sort of game you're getting.

Dragons dogma is not a jrpg. It's a wrpg. But it was made in Japan. Child of Light is a jrpg made in Montreal. And now we also get interesting melding going on (there are certainly elements of jrpg in dragons dogma, for instance).

Anyway, rpgs are risky. People are passionate about them, they can play them for many years, they usually are long and cost a lot to make, they often are poor candidates for dlc or subscriptions unless the are mmos (which are completely different games), and they have a lower player population that other games that are easier to spit out (like shooters and sports).

Witcher 3 is probably the best rpg I ever played. But on this list:http://fortune.com/2015/07/23/top-10-selling-video-games-2015-so-far/

It's not even close to the top. And didn't make the list for 2016. I love rpgs (mostly western, too), but I understand that a company can't stay profitable if they focus on rpgs only unless they do a spectacular job.

Because AAA is a car service/insurance company, not a game dev. :D

I guess that if you look at the overall game sells RPGs don't come in first place, but that doesn't mean they're not profitable and not blooming. Take into account the huge success of recent crowdfunded games such as Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun, the new Torment game, etc.

I've always been a huge fan of the RPG genre, mainly because of its tendency towards storytelling and its huge capabilities in that field, but recently that torch has been stolen by many indie games which have proven to be more fun, inspired, better written, and less costly to produce. RPGs aren't probably the easiest or cheapest genre to develop either, especially if you take them out of their golden years of the Infinity Engine bubble, but lately the genre has shown to be not only successful but also on demand so most probably we'll see in the near future great RPGs (I'm looking at you Divinity 2), just don't expect the genre to be so prolific as action games because that is not going to happen anytime soon.

Isn't it because of the shortage of Chris Avellone in the market? I mean, there are only so many different projects a man can tackle at a time and there's, currently, only one of him.

I still consider Skyrim as RPGs, they're just made for the masses so they've consciously simplified the gameplay a little but many of the elements are the same. My girlfriend would struggle to tell the difference.

Because the audience for time consuming games with complex mechanics is limited and AAA games need to appeal to the largest possible audience to make a profit.

Look to success of Pillars of Eternity... Or in FPS games, according to steamchart, there are 21,119 people playing Arma 3 while COD IW have only 835 players(obs : the number of players is while writing this message. Can change over time). And the "best selling" RPG in GOG is Neverwinter ( gog.com/games/role-playing?sort=bestselling&page=1 )