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Franchises destroyed/fatigued by countless sequels

squall23

Member
JYlSaY6.png

Literally any game that they deem successful will be turned into a franchise and milked to death.
 
I'd say Final Fantasy after XII, but thankfully XIII and especially XV have restored the franchise to some modicum of respect.

Unfortunately, Zodiac Age is arguably the worst game this year. Hopefully square doesn't go back to anything resembling that.
 
You didn't answer my question and you are just confirming my point, as you can see here, both MP9 (to MP8) and MP:IT (to MP9) sold less than half it's predecessor on two platforms with huge installed userbase. Anyway, your claim that being release late on the platform is the reason for the drop is false. MP7, being released late on GCN, outsold both MP5 and MP6. What you're saying isn't a valid excuse.



Again, you are confirming my point. While MP10 managed to bump the series sales a bit, it still managed to fall again with MP:SR, the only time the franchise ever managed to reach lower than the 1M+ mark. The fact it was released on Nov. 2016, a time of the year where games usually sell very well, Nintendo ones especially, and failed to sell 1M doesn't help it either.

This is an up and down series of cheap to produce games that sell well consistantly and will keep getting made. Hitting 1 million isn't some magic goal post of success. Im sorry, but that is not a franchise in fatigue unless you mean from gaf demo mind share point of view.
 

Wozman23

Member
Rock Band dug its own grave with the yearly releases, spinoffs and just overall missmanagenent.

Granted, part of the blame lies on EA as a publisher were they even ignored the Wii while GH was selling millions on it, to the point they crapped a Wii game...that moved millions too and then decided to take the Wii more seriously.

Rock Band got so much right though:
Their DLC model, which is still around to a lesser degree.
The addition of Pro Drums, which retroactively worked on any song.
Disc transfers for everything other than The Beatles.
DLC transfers across console families.
Compilation discs provided people physical means to add songs released as DLC.
Even the Lego entry felt warranted since it had a unique style and was more family friendly.

They fostered a unified platform, evolved, and did a lot of pro consumer stuff, whereas Guitar Hero really epitomized the rinse and repeat cycle.

Sure there were questionable evolutions that didn't pan out, like the introduction of keyboard, but for the most part Rock Band was successful, and I'm glad it is still around.
 
Assassin's Creed is the obvious example


It gets double points because not only have their been a fuck load of AC games but so many ideas are reused by other Ubi games and ideas from other Ubi games are reused in AC you get this feedback loop of fatigue that even infects new IP like Wildlands.



Oh and the Souls franchise kinda. I felt done with it half way into 3. Great games but the yearly cycle that was 2, BB, 3 really tired me.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Doesn't AC still sell well though?

Army Men

Sure I never played it but it felt like there was a new one every 6 months and it got ridiculous.

70924-182600-ArmyMenCollagejpg-620x.jpg

Wow, I remember this game appearing back in the PS1 magazines. I didn't realize it reached PS2 era.
 
As much as I love the franchise.

Bomberman. They mostly had at least 1 game every single year before the series dropped off back in 2010 before Hudson's death.
 

Trace

Banned
Army Men

Sure I never played it but it felt like there was a new one every 6 months and it got ridiculous.

70924-182600-ArmyMenCollagejpg-620x.jpg

It's sad because some of the army man games were actually really good. They just had so many spinoffs and random ass releases you could hardly tell which were amazing and which were horrible.
 
I guess origins is going to be the real test on how much damage was done.


You didn't exactly hear Ubi talk about how great syndicate sold.

Which is a shame because it's an incredibly interesting setting (Gangs of New York-esque street gangs) and the overhauled combat. Now that I think about it, all the next gen Assassin's Creed games have been pretty enjoyable. Even Unity (if you had the hardware to run it).
 
It's absolutely a "valid excuse", because I never said it always happened. I said it's not abnormal. Pokemon Black and White 2 sold just over half as many units as Black and White. I doubt you would have said the Pokemon IP was declining back in 2012. Rather, the system it was on (the DS) was long past its peak. This is not an uncommon occurrence and just because it doesn't happen every single time doesn't mean it isn't valid reasoning.

Sorry, my friend, but you answered this to me when I said the series had a sales drop:

That actually has more do with the platforms (Wii saw a huge decline after 2010 and Wii U....well....yeah) than the series itself.

Please, stay coherent with your own arguments.

This comment is just flat-out false. The series peaked during the Wii/DS era. And your argument that the series has declined due to "milking" is also wrong. Mario Party, like many Nintendo IP, declined during the past five years due to hardware that wasn't nearly as successful as the previous generation. "Milking" has little, if anything, to do with it.

Sorry, but you're just shouting "You're wrong" without giving a proper explanation for why I'm, and when you do, you bring flawed arguments, such as "it was because of hardware's low userbase" or "it was released late on the platform", when MP7 outselling both 5 and 6 on GCN, and MP:SR failing to sell 1M+ on a 67M+ platform during a holiday season, prove your theories wrong. Bold part isn't a valid excuse either, as Nintendo managed to foster franchises like Splatoon, Xenoblade and Super Mario Maker and even revitalize old ones such as Kid Icarus, Luigi's Mansion and Fire Emblem on a "hardware that wasn't nearly as successful as the previous generation". So your claim that this is the reason behind MP shrinking sales makes no sense. And yes, MP series peaked in sales on Wii/DS, as you said, but stopped being an annual franchise as it once was during N64 and GCN days by that period. Why would they? You didn't managed to explain this, either.

I guess if you believe MP series wasn't fatigued by sequels, probably you'll disagree with everyone here saying Assassin's Creed, Halo and COD...

So yeah, let's just say I strongly disagree with both of your arguments. And I would encourage you to bookmark this thread for the future, as Mario Party 11 on Switch will make my points abundantly clear.

tenor.gif
 
The magic of Halo was lost after Halo 3. Halo 2 and Halo 3 were earthshattering events. Today a lot of people who felt Halo was a transcending experience are still reminiscent of the old days, but it's now a lot about the expanded universe, toys and comic books.
 

Kalentan

Member
Do spin-offs not count as sequels?

mjowXSP.png

No, the only 'spin offs' that count in any way to the 'main series', as in, have the same gameplay, are ODST and Reach.

If you take away the remasters, other genre spin offs, there's usually a pretty decent amount of time between each game.
 

SirNinja

Member
There were seemingly a dozen Army Men games made between 1999-2001 and then the franchise just sort of fell off the face of the earth a few years later.

Edit: beaten!
 

CloudWolf

Member
Rock Band dug its own grave with the yearly releases, spinoffs and just overall missmanagenent.

Granted, part of the blame lies on EA as a publisher were they even ignored the Wii while GH was selling millions on it, to the point they crapped a Wii game...that moved millions too and then decided to take the Wii more seriously.
Eh, Rock Band did a lot of stuff right. Also, while Rock Band has yearly releases, you gotta remember, Guitar Hero had more than that. At some point Activision was releasing four Guitar Hero games per year.

The big problem with Rock Band was that someone really screwed the pooch when it came to releasing the game outside od the US. The European release of Rock Band 1 was a mess, with the game being delayed for more than a year and then having a limited release in only four countries (UK, France, Germany and Spain).and basically zero promotion. That really screwed over the perception and sales of the game in Europe, while Rock Band was pretty much on par with Guitar Hero in the US, in Europe Guitar Hero reigned supreme.
 
Ratchet & Clank. Too many sequels. Went mediocre after A Crack in Time and only got great again with the remake of R&C.

Yeah this. The fact that they were meh spinoffs is part of what made it really bad.

Man if they spent all that time making a full fledged ITN instead of making FFA and A4O... I want to live in that timeline...
 
Army Men

Sure I never played it but it felt like there was a new one every 6 months and it got ridiculous.

70924-182600-ArmyMenCollagejpg-620x.jpg

3DO, Army Men series publisher, was in huge dire for money after how bad their home console flopped, and the series was their redline for staying alive. After Army Men collapsed, they went bankrupt a few years later.
 

FinalAres

Member
It's absolutely a "valid excuse", because I never said it always happened. I said it's not abnormal. Pokemon Black and White 2 sold just over half as many units as Black and White. I doubt you would have said the Pokemon IP was declining back in 2012. Rather, the system it was on (the DS) was long past its peak. This is not an uncommon occurrence and just because it doesn't happen every single time doesn't mean it isn't valid reasoning.

Thing is, we're basically running in circles now. Your entire premise is faulty. You stated Mario Party peaked during the Gamecube era and Nintendo "dropped the ball". You're wrong.



This comment is just flat-out false. The series peaked during the Wii/DS era. And your argument that the series has declined due to "milking" is also wrong. Mario Party, like many Nintendo IP, declined during the past five years due to hardware that wasn't nearly as successful as the previous generation. "Milking" has little, if anything, to do with it.

So yeah, let's just say I strongly disagree with both of your arguments. And I would encourage you to bookmark this thread for the future, as Mario Party 11 on Switch will make my points abundantly clear.
Mario Party too is the kind of game I'd assume people would be fine buying one of per generation. So whichever Mario Party releases at the Switches peak popularity will sell bucketloads.
 
Please, stay coherent with your own arguments.

You're arguing in bad faith. My first quote is dealing with a decline in sales within the same generation, on the same hardware. The second quote is dealing with a decline in sales from one generation to the next. They're two different scenarios.

Mario Party too is the kind of game I'd assume people would be fine buying one of per generation. So whichever Mario Party releases at the Switches peak popularity will sell bucketloads.

Yeah, exactly.

Mario Party is not really a system seller. Each entry enjoys good to great sales and most of the time, its level of success has to do with the popularity of the system it's releasing on. Mario Party 11 on Switch is going to be pretty huge, likely the third best selling entry in the entire series. The ease of instant multiplayer with the joy cons is going to make it a pretty big hit. If Mario Party 12 releases on the Switch as well, it'll likely see a pretty big drop, because, like you said, most don't see a need to buy multiple iterations per generation.
 
Guitar Hero is a great example. Aside from flooding the market with sequels and spinoffs, they also kept revising the controller. People got tired of being asked to purchase expensive controllers with minor improvements.

It's funny how Rock Band 4 had legacy support for Guitar Hero controllers while the latest Guitar Hero didn't.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
3DO, Army Men series publisher, was in huge dire for money after how bad their home console flopped, and the series was their redline for staying alive. After Army Men collapsed, they went bankrupt a few years later.

And looking it up, the owner of the company became a mobile and facebook developer... and crashed and had the company sold once more.
 

jobrro

Member
First thought for fatigued I would certainly say Assassin's Creed. Still like the series overall and even enjoyed Unity but the series was certainly fatigued.

Glad Ubi had the sense to sit out a year. I still might want different things than what they provide. My fondest memories of AC involve the modern day story thread between AC1-AC3, not that I enjoyed the ending.
 
Dark Souls got progressively worse. DS1 was ace, the second a bit bloated but otherwise amazing.

The third one started well but really deteriorated. At least the designer realised and cut the cord.
 

Rockondevil

Gold Member
Personally for me it's got to be Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. There was a time I really enjoyed both those games but not anymore.

Though I can't believe people are saying Halo in here. It was definitely not destroyed/fatigued by countless sequels, rather lack of quality in the last few games. But to each their own.
 

Nev

Banned
Dark Souls got progressively worse. DS1 was ace, the second a bit bloated but otherwise amazing.

The third one started well but really deteriorated. At least the designer realised and cut the cord.

On the contrary, it starts okay but gets better in every area. It's the most consistent game in the series. Like what?

'Dark souls 2 amazing' oh okay nvm. Nothing in Dark Souls 2 main game comes remotely close to areas like Cathedral of the Deep.

I'm glad they're stopping though, DS3, as good as it is, should not exist, but we can blame 2's mess for that. No way Miyazaki would let the series end with the worst entry.
 
I really enjoyed Dark Souls 2 and 3. Beat them multiple times and got the Platinum trophy for each. Both games have some of my absolute favorite areas and boss fights. The fact that Dark Souls 3 is the fastest selling game in the franchise means people wanted more Souls. I was one of those! Day 1 purchase. Really liked it.

But yeah, those two are some of the most unnecessary sequels, and I'd be totally fine if Dark Souls 4 or a reboot never happened. I really want to see something new from FROM.
 

Lux R7

Member
Dark Souls does not belong here imho. A trilogy of amazing games. It's normal to prefer one or another, but i'm happy they all exist.
 

SilverArrow20XX

Walks in the Light of the Crystal
Assassin's Creed.
Rogue killed it for me. Making it exclusive to an obsolete console with awful performance after I got used to PS4 with their previous entry the year before. I just couldn't get through it and I'm not the type to skip entries in a series.
I'd still be eating up those yearly releases if they didn't make that astronomically stupid decision.
 
I don't think Tony Hawk games failed because of countless sequels. It's the bad sequels that ruined it.

They didn't "try" to bring back Tony Hawk with THPS5. Their contract was ending anyway.


My answer would be Batman Arkham series. Not countless sequels but all the games are the same and the open world gets bigger and bigger. Even CoD and AC games have more variety in their sequels.
 
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