Lack of variety

[Kane Knight]

This interests me a little. People complain about the lack of variety in "maps" or "levels" on video games quite often, especially citing popular games for limited options.

But a buddy's texting me bitching that he was playing CoD Black Ops before he went to work, and the group voted for the same map five times in a row. Nuke Town or something.

This isn't the first time he's made the complaint in this game, and not the first time I've heard of it happening in any game.

MNC doesn't have a voting option to pick maps, but if you play the same map four times, you're lucky if you get even two votes to skip.

Red Dead Redemption seems to fall into the same, sort of. A lot of guys will just vote to skip every time until they get the map they want, or quit out of they don't. Same with "vote to replay."

Blur's MP Demo usually ended up suffering from this, and maybe the game did too. Play the same two courses over and over again, and only because they don't always give you the same options each time.

Rock Band had this for quite some time, though it may have died down. There were two or three songs picked ad nauseum online by EVERYONE.

Now that I've got examples out of the way, let me ask this:

Why does everyone bitch at the developers for lack of variety?

When given a choice, it seems the average gamer will choose the same map/track/song/option or two repeatedly, making the need for choice all but moot, especially in games that do larger bodies of multiplayer? If people in general are going to just run with it, why should anyone feel motivated to put any effort into diversity?

First Note: If you haven't experienced this, good for you. It's still a widespread complaint and it happens with great frequency across game types. "lol what are you talking about, that's never happened to me" is a stupid argument and misses the point.

Second Note: Arguing that there are private options or you can game with friends also misses the point. the question isn't about options so much as why game companies should bother with them if the majority doesn't use them.

Third Note: Also, I'm not defending developers who put in only four maps. but it's like reality TV. I don't like it, I don't watch it, but if 20 million people watch Dancing With the Stars and the best non-reality show gets 3/4s that at dozens of times the cost, there's no motivation for quality, original programming. Similarly, if everyone's just going to play two maps and like it, why should they bust their asses on a dozen of them?

In fact:

TL;DR: if everyone's just going to play two maps and like it, why should they bust their asses on a dozen of them?