This thread is dedicated to franchises that are so milked out, that they need to stop. I mean, every 1-2 years there is a new installment and fans eat it up, thus funding the next installment in the series. I know that publishers want to make money, bu some games like COD need to stop. Some games like Assassin's Creed will end up like COD if publishers don't stop making so man spin-offs and stuff, and then there is Pokemon, lets not go there.

Activision ran Guitar Hero into the ground, EA ran their sports sims into the ground, and the next milked franchise to be ran into the ground will be Assassin's Creed. Why do publishers do it?

 The one and only Answer: 

Pokemon??..I have to disagree with you on that one

in all seriesness: Bioware are at the greatest risk with there IP's. They released Dragon Age 2 less than 1 and half years later??, and it wasn't as good. They are going to do the same with Mass effect. I know Bioware consist of an group of large studios but really. It too soon. 

They do it because customers still buy it. If a franchise should end or change, it's more reflective in sales than anything else.  If customers keep buying, they're obviously still entertained.  It's not like food where you can't live without it.

Admittedly, whenever I see people getting on the hype train for yet another COD or Pokemon game, I just kind of shake my head in amazement. But are you really surprised that publishers are going to keep selling what fans are willing to buy?

Also, it took far more than annual installments to run Guitar Hero into the ground; the amount of spin-offs they released was just crazy, and the whole thing was just poorly handled as they were in an obvious blind rush to make as much money as they could off of the franchise before it died.

Since Mass Effect 3 is presently scheduled for early 2012, it will have been at least a full 2 years since Mass Effect 2. That's hardly milking it.

"EA ran their sports sims into the ground"

FIFA 11 recently sold 10 Million units and became the best selling FIFA game ever. The previous holder of that title was FIFA 10. And before that, FIFA 09 sold awesome too.

You're a big fibber.

With Pokemon, I wouldn't say the mainline RPG series is milked, nor really the spin offs.  Given the fact that there is a decent sized gap between release of mainline games (both R/S to D/P and D/P to B/W were 4 years), there are far worse offenders such as CoD where the gap between mainline games is 1 year.

Where I would agree with the OP and say that to a degree Pokemon band is milked as a whole.  There has been a lot of Pokemon games when one factors in the mainline series, ranger, mystery dungeon, rush, battle revolution, my pokemon farm, that typing one, etc.  It's a similar situation to the Mario series.

I don't care if a series is milked as long as it retains good quality AND the publisher still managers to release new quality stuff. They always to it for the money.

/thread