Unfortunately I wouldn't say it had two good games, it really only had one (the 3rd). Well at least in my opinion. The first one sold so well because of Xenogears, but couldn't deliver which is why fewer picked up the second and hardly anyone the third.

It's like with the XIII series. People bought XIII because it is Final Fantasy, then when they found out it sucked they didn't return for the sequel and those who had realized Square-Enix did not live up to the promise of hearing the fans complaints and resolving them, so even fewer bought the third. 

You can't have good word of mouth with no word of mouth at all you know. According to VGC, this game broke 90K in NA, this game didn't even release in the PAL regions, and games in japan rarely have good legs. 

pretty much 1)

there's only a small minority of gamers who have the patience for so much storydetail and enjoy diving into it. the overall majority gets pissed by the infooverkill. it's kinda sad but the trend is openworld gameplay and simple, straightfoward storytelling. when you try it the other way round, be prepared for a hudge shitstorm.

Which is precisely why the third game isn't as good as you think it might be ...

Getting no good word of mouth must mean there's a fault in the game itself, not the customers ... (Credits to rol for the idea.)

If you had my lens I'm sure you would be able to spot out the issues more easily with the games ...

I agree with this as well, which is why slow burning stories are mostly restricted to TV and movies. You can only handle around 2 hours or so before you really start wanting to know what the point of all of it is. 80+ hours of setting up plot is a bit of overkill and I think Monolith Soft realized it which is why Blade isn't the next space opera, but will be a series of large single title contained stories. All anyone needs is around 100 hours for a three act structure, not six games (which wound up condensed to three). 

Which brings me back a few posts. They had no way of drawing you in to the next game(I'm not sure if this part actually made it into the post. It was in a rough draft). 

People didn't find a reason to make the jump. Those who didn't buy the second game didn't want to do it because they weren't caught up, and those who did play the second game didn't want to risk being burnt again. 

There's a difference between a direct sequel and a new game when it comes to good word of mouth. Even if the word of mouth did spread, most people wouldn't have played it because they would need to know the story of the first two games. And considering the bad word of mouth that went through with the second game, they didn't want to play that one. Much like the way I have trouble recommending the series because of that game in particular. 

While I do agree completely (and other devs have found GREAT success from this *see Mighty No 9) he already tweeted that this wasn't going to be an option. Why? I have absolutely no freaking idea, but it is what it is. 

I would still argue that episode I and III are over rated in metacritic, just had to jump in with a quick personal opinion. 

Sure the interconnected plot may end up been an issue but overall there are many franchises that faced the same problems but ended up overcoming them because the sequels were a vast improvement ...

Many people that played Uncharted 2 did NOT play the first one in the series. The same deal goes for Mass Effect, The Witcher, and some other series as well ... 

The first one was good for its time, but not really that good. It had a good story but all kinds of other problems.

the second one was terrible.

The third one was very good... but the amount of people that got there was minimal.

in my opinion ofcourse. But, it didn't really ever seem to develop an enthusiastic following like xenogears or xenoblade did.