There is no trend towards simpler games. Thats something a bunch of marketing analysts, managers and other chumps made up. Its sad, really sad, that there has never been a game of similar quality since then.
Everyone is tired of mind-numbing games. There are enough morons who produce stupid games for stupid people. The whole game industry degenerates to a money-producing fastfood steamroller, knocking down all the innovative ideas (and the good old ones too). The same thing happened to the movie industry years ago. Yes there are good films, but its not the majority.
The only ones who can save this are the developers themselves, by not producing crap and make the monkeys with the deep pockets realise it.
If anyone from obsidian reads this, please, make great games like Planescape: Torment again.
And even if it only sells "ok", dont start to produce crap.