Why Has the MASS EFFECT Series Never Been Duplicated?

The Mass Effect series has garnered a huge fan base around the world (including myself) and can easily be considered one of the top current gaming franchises. That being said though, I have to ask why is no other video game studio trying to copy or clone it's success? The video game industry is like most other industries in that it is very copy-cat based; the Call of Duty franchise being the best example. We now have hundreds of cloned first person shooters, with some being good others not so much. But if we as an industry are going to move away from originality for monetary reasons, isn't there money to be had by trying to duplicate some of what makes the Mass Effect series so special? I understand why everyone is trying to clone the Call of Duty model, but why stop there? Why not duplicate Mass Effect as well? I argue that it would actually be safer financially and more logical to try and create a game that is more based off the Mass Effect franchise than it is to create yet another Call of Duty clone. I understand game developers and publishers wanting a piece of the Call of Duty pie, but the market is already over-saturated with FPSs and it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate yourself as a developer. Games like Homefront and the new Medal of Honor have tried to break in and have come up short, making some money but long term - which is what companies care about - Homefront and Medal of Honor are simply not in the same league as Battlefield or Call of Duy. In fact, if your name isn€™t COD or Battlefield there is little chance your first person military shooter will survive. And yet there is an entire fan base that is dying for gameplay that is similar to what Mass Effect has to offer, a single player sci-fi shooter with good characters, a story that changes based on your decisions, and some RPG elements. Having just some of these elements would help your game stand out in overcrowded world of generic first person shooters. A game like Fallout 3 that uses the dialog trees and gives you the option to be good or evil is a good example how to implement those types of features into a game. Using features like these would more than likely get more sales and increase notice among gamers. A game that is similar to Mass Effect would also be more likely to get increased press coverage from gaming sites. Look at Alpha Protocol, a game that tried to some of the features that Mass Effect series uses, and got a ton of press coverage because it was trying to be different (too bad the finished product didn't turn out better). Just by copying a few ideas from the Mass Effect series Alpha Protocol got quite a bit of press coverage and hype, and had the game had better gameplay, the game would have sold much better because the story and the gameplay mechanics worked well. A game that has had great success using some of the gameplay mechanics from the Mass Effect series is The Witcher 2; one of the best RPGs to come out this year. The Witcher 2 has dialog trees as well as a story that changes based on your decisions in the game; one my favorite parts of Witcher 2 is the changing story. The Witcher 2 has done extremely well sales-wise so far and will becoming to the Xbox 360 this year because demand for the game is so high. If you want to look at why I am advocating using Mass Effect gameplay mechanics look no further than the success critically and commercially of the Witcher 2 I know everybody wants more originality in games and I am seemingly advocating duplicating style and content of games that are already out there, but, I am simply trying to stay realistic here. The way I see it, it is too risky for publishers to green light original games because of game development costs (which is true, it is extremely expensive to produce new triple-A games), and in that context it makes far more financial sense to go after an untapped segment of the gaming population than to try and create generic shooter number twenty-five. If any of you have suggestions of games like Mass Effect I would love to hear them.