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Franchises destroyed/fatigued by countless sequels

Releasing sequels has been a trend among big publishers and developers for quite some times, claiming financial stability and high costs of gaming development to avoid taking risks as reasons for this directions. Even though, there are some examples of franchises being ruined or terribly fatigued thanks to how badly the publisher/developer milked it, sometimes with very little to add in comparison to it's previous installment.

Here's some examples:

- Tony Hawk: Perhaps the biggest and most recognizable skateboard franchise ever, was big during PSX/PS2 days, but later on, the franchise was milked so badly that lost interest year after year, to the point of Activision throw it into the vault. They tried to bring it back with recent efforts with THPS5 and THPS HD, but didn't manage to restore it's former popularity.

- Guitar Hero: Another bust by Activision. Perhaps one of the most succesful music franchise ever, it falled short thanks to so many lazy and easy cash in efforts. It's on the vault and it's mismanagement took a major blow into the music genre as whole.

- Mario Party: It was among Nintendo's top seller titles during the N64/GCN days, but Nintendo dropped the ball here. Yearly releases during the N64/GCN milked it dry and ever since, the franchise lives on the shadow of it's former self and Nintendo itself doesn't treat it as a major title like before. From 1998 to 2007, we got 10 Mario Party installments, 3 for N64, 4 for GCN, 1 for GBA, 1 for Wii and 1 for DS. From 2007 till now, in a 10 years gap, we only got 6 titles. Obviously, Nintendo doesn't rely on it anymore as they once did before.

Anymore franchises with similar fate thanks to mismanaged milking?
 
D

Deleted member 465307

Unconfirmed Member
I'm not sure if this is a correct answer to this thread (since I haven't played many of the games nor did I track the franchise's trajectory), but I know that Mega Man at one point was receiving tons of games across its various spinoffs. And that franchise seems to be somewhat dead now. :/
 

DNAbro

Member
I completely disagree with Mario Party. Wasn't Mario Party 8 one of the highest selling Wii games? Oddly enough they stopped making a ton of them once they had their biggest hits. The games only started declining when they decided the original formula needed to be changed for some goddamn reason.
 
Assassin's Creed is the obvious one. Liberation, Rogue, Syndicate, the DS game were all unnecessary. Origins seems like an improvement though
 

Eliseo

Member
Releasing sequels has been a trend among big publishers and developers for quite some times, claiming financial stability and high costs of gaming development to avoid taking risks as reasons for this directions. Even though, there are some examples of franchises being ruined or terribly fatigued thanks to how badly the publisher/developer milked it, sometimes with very little to add in comparison to it's previous installment.

Here's some examples:

- Tony Hawk: Perhaps the biggest and most recognizable skateboard franchise ever, was big during PSX/PS2 days, but later on, the franchise was milked so badly that lost interest year after year, to the point of Activision throw it into the vault. They tried to bring it back with recent efforts with THPS5 and THPS HD, but didn't manage to restore it's former popularity.

- Guitar Hero: Another bust by Activision. Perhaps one of the most succesful music franchise ever, it falled short thanks to so many lazy and easy cash in efforts. It's on the vault and it's mismanagement took a major blow into the music genre as whole.

- Mario Party: It was among Nintendo's top seller titles during the N64/GCN days, but Nintendo dropped the ball here. Yearly releases during the N64/GCN milked it dry and ever since, the franchise lives on the shadow of it's former self and Nintendo itself doesn't treat it as a major title like before. From 1998 to 2007, we got 10 Mario Party installments, 3 for N64, 4 for GCN, 1 for GBA, 1 for Wii and 1 for DS. From 2007 till now, in a 10 years gap, we only got 6 titles. Obviously, Nintendo doesn't rely on it anymore as they once did before.

Anymore franchises with similar fate thanks to mismanaged milking?

I am pretty sure mario party 8 and 9 sold the most on the wii and mario party DS, hell even the wii u one sold 2m?
 

Sheroking

Member
Pretty much everything that went yearly and wasn't tied directly to some sports league has suffered from some level of fatigue.
 
- Mario Party: It was among Nintendo's top seller titles during the N64/GCN days, but Nintendo dropped the ball here. Yearly releases during the N64/GCN milked it dry and ever since, the franchise lives on the shadow of it's former self and Nintendo itself doesn't treat it as a major title like before. From 1998 to 2007, we got 10 Mario Party installments, 3 for N64, 4 for GCN, 1 for GBA, 1 for Wii and 1 for DS. From 2007 till now, in a 10 years gap, we only got 6 titles. Obviously, Nintendo doesn't rely on it anymore as they once did before.

The two Wii releases and the DS game are the three best selling entries in the series. And Mario Party 10 on Wii U sold more copies than a couple of the N64/GCN titles.
 
Assassin's Creed the thread. I'm actually impressed that franchise lasted as long as it did before they had to take a year off.
 

SeanHollister

Neo Member
Do Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy count? Spinoffs, not sequels, were their undoing.

Tempted to say Sonic.

Burnout. (ironic?)

Thankfully a good sequel or reboot can salvage just about any stale franchise these days, save fads like Guitar Hero. Zelda and Resident Evil just proved that. Hoping Ace Combat does too.
 

joecanada

Member
Call of Duty.

Hmmm this depends on what would define milking dry because call of duty has plenty of sales left in the tank but I agree ideas wise it's a desert. Also it always amazes me how they cheap out on servers the only reason I left and won't come back

Edit- personally Madden for me . Think about it they could easily update rosters with updates but they have to release the same damn game every year with some gimmick tied on - " intelligent eye qb system !!!!"
 
I completely disagree with Mario Party. Wasn't Mario Party 8 one of the highest selling Wii games? Oddly enough they stopped making a ton of them once they had their biggest hits. The games only started declining when they decided the original formula needed to be changed for some goddamn reason.

It was... 10 years ago. Still, it had a huge sales drop from MP8 to MP9. MP8 sold 8.85 million vs. MP9's 3.11 million. MP:IT and MP10 sold only 1.14 million and 2.11 million respectively. A far cry from franchise's popularity apex.

I am pretty sure mario party 8 and 9 sold the most on the wii and mario party DS, hell even the wii u one sold 2m?

The two Wii releases and the DS game are the three best selling entries in the series. And Mario Party 10 on Wii U sold more copies than a couple of the N64/GCN titles.

Like I said, from 1998 to 2007. Afterwards, the series went downhill.
 
Do Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy count? Spinoffs, not sequels, were their undoing.

Tempted to say Sonic.

Burnout. (ironic?)

Thankfully a good sequel or reboot can salvage just about any stale franchise these days, save fads like Guitar Hero. Zelda and Resident Evil just proved that. Hoping Ace Combat does too.
Those series are still insanely popular and selling well...
 
Do Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy count? Spinoffs, not sequels, were their undoing.

Undoing? FF games still sell well. XV just did 6 million, XIV is one of the biggest MMORPGs currently out there. XII and IX are the worst-selling main games since the PS1 boom and those still did 5+ million.

I don't know about KH though; I will say the first is still the best-selling game. But III is most likely going to be pretty successful.
 

Eliseo

Member
It was... 10 years ago. Still, it had a huge sales drop from MP8 to MP9. MP8 sold 8.85 million vs. MP9's 3.11 million. MP:IT and MP10 sold only 1.14 million and 2.11 million respectively. A far cry from franchise's popularity apex.





Like I said, from 1998 to 2007. Afterwards, the series's went downhill.

I'm confused, if we are talking about sales and dates MP 9 was 2012 and sold 3m and MP 10 sold 2.1m which is in the same range the N64/gamecube games were.
 

SkyOdin

Member
Mega man.
Mega Man showcases the clear pitfall of making annual sequels: the risk of making a bad game. I think the annual releases, paired with multimedia advertising in the form of a kid's anime and manga, were actually doing a good job of keeping interest in the series high, until a really bad game was released soon after some great ones. That killed the entire momentum of the franchise.

Quality control is important. If you are going to churn out sequels, you need to be able to guarantee that they all are of high quality.
 

Madao

Member
in a way this was one of the things that killed F-Zero.

a series that survived with 1 entry per console suddendly got 4 in 3 years and 3 on the same platform (3 GBA games)
i'd say this was one big factor that put the series in ice due to losing money in too many games back to back.

It was... 10 years ago. Still, it had a huge sales drop from MP8 to MP9. MP8 sold 8.85 million vs. MP9's 3.11 million. MP:IT and MP10 sold only 1.14 million and 2.11 million respectively. A far cry from franchise's popularity apex.





Like I said, from 1998 to 2007. Afterwards, the series went downhill.

none of the pre Wii era MPs sold above 3 million. some of the GC ones even sold in MP:IT's range.

MP really collapsed in quality in the Wii days but sales still haven't gone low enough to say the series' viability is gone (though the 2nd MP on 3DS didn't do well. it hasn't done a million yet i think)
 
Like I said, from 1998 to 2007. Afterwards, the series went downhill.

It didn't though. Mario Party 9, one of the best selling entries in the entire franchise, released in 2012. And Mario Party 10, a game that sold more than a couple of the N64/GCN titles, released in 2015. The series is doing fine.
 
... Dark Souls.
Yearly sequels there for a while. Thank god they took a break, I liked 3, but the formula was starting to wear thin for me. And I always put three playthroughs into those games so it was triply too much.
 

Zukkoyaki

Member
Starts and ends with Guitar Hero/Rock Band. They're about the only case I can think of where constant releases literally killed the franchise(s) rather than just causing numbers to either plateau or wane.
 
Madden is the biggest rip off year after year. They'll still sell a lot because they're the only show in town.

I think Dark Souls got pretty fatigued by the time 3 came out.
 

Wozman23

Member
Activision was so bad with Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk that they took down Rock Band and Skate with them. That's a revolutionary way to destroy your competition.
 
I'm confused, if we are talking about sales and dates MP 9 was 2012 and sold 3m and MP 10 sold 2.1m which is in the same range the N64/gamecube games were.

It didn't though. Mario Party 9, one of the best selling entries in the entire franchise, released in 2012. And Mario Party 10, a game that sold more than a couple of the N64/GCN titles, released in 2015. The series is doing fine.

It's clear to me that when a franchise sell less than the half of it's previous installment on the same platform (MP8 vs MP9) it's a clear sign of franchise fatigue. It managed to sell even less on both 3DS and Wii U. 3DS and Wii U selling around close to N64/GCN can't hide the fact it had a big sales drop from Wii and DS days. It's no secret why Nintendo stopped releasing it annually aware of it's shrinking sales.

none of the pre Wii era MPs sold above 3 million. some of the GC ones even sold in MP:IT's range.

MP really collapsed in quality in the Wii days but sales still haven't gone low enough to say the series' viability is gone (though the 2nd MP on 3DS didn't do well. it hasn't done a million yet i think)

Yes, it did. MP8 and MPDS sold around 8 million. On 3DS it berely managed to become a million seller.

Edit: oh, my bad. Didn't notice the "pre" Wii.
 

Eliseo

Member
It's clear to me that when a franchise sell less than the half of it's previous installment on the same platform (MP8 vs MP9) it's a clear sign of franchise fatigue. It managed to sell even less on both 3DS and Wii U. 3DS and Wii U selling around close to N64/GCN can't hide the fact it had a big sales drop from Wii and DS days.



Yes, it did. MP8 and MPDS sold around 8 million. On 3DS it berely managed to become a million seller.

But your premise was top sellers during N64/GC era, now you are talking about wii? @_@
 
It's clear to me that when a franchise sell less than the half of it's previous installment on the same platform (MP8 vs MP9) it's a clear sign of franchise fatigue. It managed to sell even less on both 3DS and Wii U. 3DS and Wii U selling around close to N64/GCN can't hide the fact it had a big sales drop from Wii and DS days.

That actually has more do with the platforms (Wii saw a huge decline after 2010 and Wii U....well....yeah) than the series itself. This is like saying Mario Kart has been destroyed because Mario Kart 7's sales aren't even half of Mario Kart Wii's numbers.

Bookmark this post and bump this thread when Mario Party 11 comes to Switch.
 
Guitar Hero is mentioned in the OP, but it's a special example, because it basically killed not only it's own franchise, but Rock Band alongside it, despite Rock Band's much more reasonable pace of releases. It was all the same to the public and Guitar Hero drove it into the ground real hard.
 

Agent X

Member
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.
 

A-V-B

Member
Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero are definitely in on this one.

I think Guitar Hero/Rock Band dying was sort of an inevitability, but Activision accelerated it.

And Tony Hawk is just... Sad. Really sad. I loved that series and it got stomped into dust.
 

Toth

Member
Undoing? FF games still sell well. XV just did 6 million, XIV is one of the biggest MMORPGs currently out there. XII and IX are the worst-selling main games since the PS1 boom and those still did 5+ million.

I don't know about KH though; I will say the first is still the best-selling game. But III is most likely going to be pretty successful.

Yup, FF is doing very well at the moment.

I gess Suikoden would fit in here. A terrible fourth entry that spawned a nice but unnecessary tactics game, coupled with the DS games under-performing. It's shame because V was so good and a clear sign the series was heading back toward what made it so great.
 

fernoca

Member
Activision was so bad with Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk that they took down Rock Band and Skate with them. That's a revolutionary way to destroy your competition.
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.
 

Betty

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
 
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