Absolutely. AAA is eating itself. Budgets seemingly becoming unsustainable and as more and more development studios are getting closed, the talent is fleeing to form indie studios. Off the self engines like Unity and Unreal are accelerating this and I bet the trend will continue. The Assassin's Creed games all seem the same and I'm baffled by how many there are. Call of Duty I just have no interest in, but that franchise is similarly overwhelming.

For several years now I've been largely uninterested in big-budget games and nearly all of my time has been spent with smaller budget or weird indie games. The NES was my introduction to video games and at this point I want new experiences that either push the boundaries of the medium or polish an excepted concept to perfection. I don't want to spend my time on tedious tutorials, boring storytelling and exposition, or shackled to genre tropes and conventions. I've been there, done that. If I'm following an arrow, I'm probably going to get bored.

Often AAA games will have interesting ideas but are so weighed down by all the expectations and assumptions that come with a game of that scale and budget it makes me wish they would have more focus. For example, Shadow of Mordor has an interesting nemesis system and I liked being a pirate in Assassin's Creed 4, but not being an assassin. Were the developers forced to turn their pirate game into an Assassin's Creed game or were they tired of Assassin's Creed games and tried to turn it into a pirate game? (Yes, I realize there are multiple teams and studios working on the individual entries in the series)

Dark Souls is now one of my favorite games ever, so I'm not against big games. However, I would have thought the abnormally long console cycle last generation would have enabled more experimentation and creativity. I want to see more experimental things from big studios like Ubisoft Reflections' Grow Home. Weird and different, even if flawed, is so much more interesting to me. Maybe I'm just tired, jaded, and place different value of my time now.

I feel like part of enjoying a game in a series is rediscovering what makes it so great after a little time away. I've found more enjoyment in games that are 3+ years a part in release because I get to thoroughly enjoy whatever title I'm currently playing, finish it, and then be away from it long enough for the next one to excite me again. Instant gratification gets taken for granted after being spoiled with yearly titles.

No, because the development process takes a lot longer than a year. Often times individual teams within the company are developing the 'next game' simultaneously, just at a slower pace/later start date.

Sure, there is the issue that some games are becoming stale (Ubisoft's open world formula is probably the biggest I can think of) but that really does boil down to personal opinion. For me, I love the way they do open world games, namely the Assassins Creed series. Then there is also Call of Duty, which in the eyes of many does churn out the 'same game year by year', though the quality of the games does change with the developer - Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer and Treyarch are the companies developing each years'.

So no, I don't think annual releases are bad, after all a year is a fairly long time, but I think the staleness attributed to the same formula is often solely personal opinion, rather than any measured effect.