I've been dying to talk about this topic!
Little backstory here, I grew up with Half-life and its various mods...Hell I was even on a mod team. Needless to say I played them all for years. Natural Selection was the one that impressed me most, Day of Defeat, Counterstrike etc etc. Fast forward!
I have a brother who is 13 years younger than me. Saw him playing this game called "Call of Duty"... I figured hey they looks like Counterstrike/DoD whatever. HOLD UP, you just paid money for 4 maps?! Fast Forward!
Someone bought me Call of Duty: Ghosts last Christmas. I gave it a shot, it's pretty fun, yadda yadda. I get that it's "pure", I imagine it sorta like Quake III. I always gave Call of Duty developers the stink-eye because I thought they were incapable of innovation. I had always thought that if Counterstrike did it years ago, why aren't things different? Once I started playing ghosts I learned the nasty truth.
The players don't want it
Infinity Ward has dumped so much development time into Extinction mode and few play it. Few people play anything but Team Deathmatch.
So...Topic? Is this stuff cyclical? Will there always be a "pure" shooter or will the genre progress? Will games like Destiny bridge the gap between frat boys and nerds?