Why Companies are Not Actually “Milking” Their Franchises

I have heard many people express the sentiment that gaming is slowly dying. They don’t point to micro transactions, or even movie tie-in games, but rather AAA publishers and developers work on a series rather than trying new IPs.

In fact, Ubisoft recently announced that they would not take on a new game title, if they felt they could not make a franchise out of it. So is the fact that big names are “milking” series a bad thing? Is creativity dead in gaming?

Heck no! When we have games like The Last of Us, GTAV,  Skyrim, or even the “indie” market games like Braid or Limbo, you can see creativity in games is at an all time high.

The gaming market realizes there is no money in games without creativity. Hell, people might hate on Call of Duty, but you would be ignoring relatively innovative changes they brought to try and reinvent its multi player. Companies realize that they can not produce more of the same and still earn the consumer’s favor.

If they shoveled literally the same thing at us without improvements from previous versions in the series, their sales would be hurting. They aren’t “milking” anything, rather they are ensuring their longevity as a company by producing a well-known game that ALLOWS them to dabble in new IPs. Those well-known games that also manage to bring fresh new ideas in each installment.

Hell would you want them  to make a game that no one likes enough to have a second in the series?

Sure Rockstar might not release a Grand Theft Auto every year, but they are working on multiple other series while the next installment is created. Just like Ubisoft. So there is no reason to demonize a company that still manages to produce great games. A company so popular and well received, they have multiple studios around the world working on different series at the same time.

My point is you look at the quality of games being produced and the unique IPs that are shown every year, and still say “things used to be better” or “gaming is dying”, then you are missing out on the fun.