| RolStoppable said: Deviation has the highest probability of destroying a franchise, so it's the worst option out of those four. Dumb down is next in line, because there is also a good chance to piss off existing fans. It's easier to sell to existing consumers than new ones. Unlike deviation, dumbing down at least still keeps many of the same mechanics, albeit simplified. "Inbreeding" isn't all that bad. While it means that a franchise won't be able to grow, it doesn't necessarily mean that its popularity will decrease. Games with high entry barriers have their own sort of attraction, after all. Tiny upgrades are the best way to go, provided the core mechanics are actually good. If they are nothing special, then the franchise is bound to get stale over time. One thing that wasn't mentioned in the original post is the approach to combine two of these design philosophies (where possible, like deviation combined with dumbing down). The result more often than not is a jack of all trades, master of none sort of thing. If you look at topselling games you'll note that they usually only do one thing really good, but they are masterful at it. |
Agree. Dumbing down is the worst for my tastes, but I guess deviation can damage a franchise even more (not always, Fallout 3 for example is successful, despite quite deviated, but it was released so many years after the previous episodes that more than deviating, it rebuilt an old and missedd franchise in another direction).
I agree also with your last point, I noticed too that often these sequel design flaws come combined, to further worsen things, and this is particularly true for dumbing down often combined with deviation (a typical example, former core RPG franchises that get dumbed down also by wildly stripping them of RPG elements).
