this could be said of a number of franchises. all to the credit of gamer/developers, who were given the room, time, & money to bring life to their visions. most of whom are now under the control of people who don't play games, aren't interested in 'gaming' itself, & are dealing with them strictly as established 'product', to be re-iterated over'n'over in ever more profit-inducing forms, until it doesn't work anymore...
It's applicable in general, but it's REALLY applicable to SimCity, which is one of the oldest, possibly
the oldest computer game franchise that has remained popular throughout the decades. (I realize it's been ten years since the last game but I still don't think it's a "resurrection" in the way that something like Fallout 3 was.)
It's from an era completely different from pretty much every franchise that is currently being milked to death. It was originally released at time when computers were
just capable of doing something like this, though most people didn't realize it, and it took a genius game designer to try it. It was definitely a "look what computers can do!" game when it came out, and everyone who was anywhere from 5 to 50 at the time has fond memories of it. As Sharp said, the name "SimCity" was previously synonymous with the
best potential for video games. There was a reason why it was on every school and library computer in the '90s.
It's really a terrible shame that it's all going so sour, so quickly.