It actually makes a lot of sense NorthAI. Though this doesn't always apply, it does often enough to be worth mentioning. In all media, and even in other fields of activities, there exist a range of quality that one is able to enjoy based on that person's level. Too low and I think something is trash, but too high and it goes over my head. I can't appreciate Schubert's music because it goes above my head, thus I'm more likely to listen to a more mediocre song. Or course a normal distribution of players is largest at the middle, so it is a game that is good enough to excite that middle demographic, but not so good that it goes above it, that becomes highly popular.
This is not to say that popular games are necessarily not of quality or similarly that quality games cannot be popular, but that the higher elements of quality in a game go unnoticed to the general public so it falls to the middle appeal of a game to determine its popularity.
Edited, Jul 17th 2008 3:10am by Allegory