Why are there not more games like Borderlands?

[Thefatness]

I finally got my wife to try the first Borderlands with me tonight, and I was explaining to her how many clones there are out there of randomized loot/grind for upgrade style games(not sure if there's an actual term for that style of play). Look at how many Diablo style clones there are, or even take it a stretch further and look at MMO's. There are hundreds and hundreds of fantasy/point and click/RPG style games where it's essentially killing hordes of enemies in search for basic loot, but none of those are shooters, or even remotely close to the style of Borderlands.

The only real close game that I can think of is Hellgate: London, and that game died a long long time ago. Sure there's a few that are MILDLY similar, like Bulletstorm, or even to a stretch Destiny. But Borderlands is/was extremely successful, and is the only console game of its style that has splitscreen. It saddens me a little bit that once we play through all of the Borderlands, we won't be able to share the same progression style of play, or carrot on a stick, that we do with Borderlands. My wife has no interest in playing games like Diablo, or WoW, or even Destiny, but she really likes Borderlands.

I just am somewhat perplexed as to why with how clone-happy the gaming industry is, there simply hasn't been any attempts to truly try to replicate the style/success of Borderlands.

[Zalamander]

I only feel that way about the first borderlands tho.
Spoiler alert! The others does not have that sense of progress at all and that makes me get tired of them and cant play for more than an hour or so before I got bored of them. Its as if the creators didn't understand at all what made the first one good.
What I men is that in the start and moving forward in borderlands 1 you are pretty weak, you only find very small bad weapons, slowly building up and you dont find that many all the time.

I played the 2nd game for my first time I just killed a few enemies at start and the entire ground was filled with tons of strange huge guns of different kinds, it was just overwhelming to try and take in and I got the feeling of being spoiled.

[MechaMoose]

I think people are still trying to find a way to fix the major issue with borderlands in that its so much more fun with a full group that if u miss the train and can only play by yourself it doesn't seem worth it.

once someone comes up with a good way to queue for the story mode of borderlands I think clones will become more common.

[Anthem92]

Why are there not more works of art like the Mona Lisa?

[Jonnusthegreat]

Perfect game: Mix of ESO and Borderlands.

[Deleted]

Here's a clone for iOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qqs7LK8yYQ

[Thefatness]

Why are there not more works of art like the Mona Lisa?

Comparing Borderlands to the Mona Lisa, brilliant. How long before your next troll account is created?

[Arcanimus]

I'm not sure why you'd want more of the same with a different coat of paint, when there are already existing sequels (and prequel) to it. I would rather see a new, more interesting twist on the FPS genre.

I want to see something like Brink succeed, or a more freeform Portal.

Something other than the default point and shoot bad guy of a slightly different shade of grey/brown.

[Deleted]

Played Borderlands 1 and 2. It's boring as fuck, totally not solo play friendly because it's so boring.

[muppetpilot]

I played Borderlands 1 and 2. Couldn't make it through the first one, just wasn't all that great.
Had some fun with the second for a while, but honestly I just don't think these games are all they are hyped up to be sometimes. I found some really unfair difficulty spikes in both games, but this was especially pronounced in BL 2, and as a primarily-solo player they were very annoying. Just my opinion here, but after 30 years of gaming I find sudden difficulty spikes to be really lazy game design. I can understand bosses that are bullet sponges (hello, Destiny!) but there are just some aspects of the BL games that rub me the wrong way.
And the increasing respawn cost as you die more is a pretty negative thing, that was the thing that finally got me to put BL 2 down for good. Losing $3500 at a time due to some wonky "mechanic" was just too much.
Anyway, the BL games are good enough, and evidently lots of folks love 'em, but they are far from the best shooters and can be pretty punishing if you don't happen to have a bunch of friends who play and can help you out.

[RoninaThorstone]

Firefall tried to become a borderlands-eske MMO, they even did their art style in a similar way for a while.

It's fun but the dev team hasn't really finished "baking" the game yet.