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Forums - Gaming - Why is 'milking' considered inherently bad amongst gamers?

Chris Hu on 03 July 2012
MDMAlliance said:
Chris Hu said:
MDMAlliance said:
Chris Hu said:
darkknightkryta said:
Simple, it's easier to bore of something that you do repeatedly. This isn't really tied down to games either. Like listening to a song over and over again, you'll get sick of it, same with games.


Good point like they say variety is the spice of life once you get tired of something its time to move on to another thing.


Except the game isn't the exact same thing over and over again.

Almost any game can become repetitive if you play it enough some are just more repetitive then others. 


Like CoD? hahaha but people haven't gotten tired of it yet, probably because when people play online they do dumb sh**.

Wouldn't know almost never play games online and definitey not FPS which is my least played genre of games.



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Jay520 on 03 July 2012
happydolphin said:
Jay520 said:
I've always thought milking was simply releasing a lot of games within a short time. Since I've seen a lot of people say X game is milked even when the series has been high quality. People also say a series is becoming milked when a new game is announced yet hasn't been released. For example "Halo 4 and 5 are already announced? Microsoft is milking Halo!". In this example, the games haven't even released, yet people are still calling it milked. That's why I don't think the term is tied to quality, just release frequency. And even if that's not the popular definition of milked, its the one I'm referring to, as noted in the OP.

Yes, but if the frequency is too high, the value add between each entry is reduced for the same price. Since value-add is a measure of content which is an attribute of quality (for games), then milking can be considered a reduction in the quality/price ratio and hence leads to a rip-off. Anything that doesn't fall into that can't be called milking.



Then we're obviously talking about two different things here.

happydolphin on 03 July 2012
Jay520 said:
Then we're obviously talking about two different things here.

Well that's what milking is! Otherwise why give it a term if you're just releasing a new legitimate entry?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=franchise-milk



thranx on 03 July 2012

I dont like it because I will get sick of the gameplay if a game is milked to often, and also sick of the story. Its nice having a break from a game so you can enjoy a new story or new gameplay, and than come back to a sequel later. I prefer no more than 2 entries from the same franchise in the same gen.



Jay520 on 03 July 2012
happydolphin said:
Jay520 said:
Then we're obviously talking about two different things here.

Well that's what milking is! Otherwise why give it a term if you're just releasing a new legitimate entry?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=franchise-milk



urban dictionary....really? There is no official definition for the word and there are many interpretations of it. This thread covers a specific interpretation, which I've clarified in the OP. (Actually, I think its the first sentence.) I'm not saying my interpretation is correct, none are, I'm just using the word to describe the phenomenon that I wish to discuss.

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Jay520 on 03 July 2012
thranx said:
I dont like it because I will get sick of the gameplay if a game is milked to often, and also sick of the story. Its nice having a break from a game so you can enjoy a new story or new gameplay, and than come back to a sequel later. I prefer no more than 2 entries from the same franchise in the same gen.


is this an absolute preference? Does this apply to all games and all genres? From 100+ hours RPGs to 6 hour action games. You prefer all of them to have two entries per gen.

MDMAlliance on 03 July 2012

Quite literally the meaning of "milking" a franchise doesn't mean it's lower quality, but the term itself has a negative connotation to it.
If you think about milking a cow, you think of a repetitive action I suppose. It's much about frequency and a lot less about the quality. People like using the term "milking" because they want to accuse the company that's doing the "milking" rather than accuse the product. In a way, when people are saying something is being milked, they are calling the company greedy.



thranx on 03 July 2012
Jay520 said:
thranx said:
I dont like it because I will get sick of the gameplay if a game is milked to often, and also sick of the story. Its nice having a break from a game so you can enjoy a new story or new gameplay, and than come back to a sequel later. I prefer no more than 2 entries from the same franchise in the same gen.


is this an absolute preference? Does this apply to all games and all genres? From 100+ hours RPGs to 6 hour action games. You prefer all of them to have two entries per gen.


Yea. Its let me play a wider variety of games but still feel connected to a series.



Heavenly_King on 03 July 2012

As long as the games are great I don't give a damn if a franchise gets milked or not.



Open World-Survival-Game Days Gone

Jay520 on 03 July 2012
thranx said:
Jay520 said:
thranx said:
I dont like it because I will get sick of the gameplay if a game is milked to often, and also sick of the story. Its nice having a break from a game so you can enjoy a new story or new gameplay, and than come back to a sequel later. I prefer no more than 2 entries from the same franchise in the same gen.


is this an absolute preference? Does this apply to all games and all genres? From 100+ hours RPGs to 6 hour action games. You prefer all of them to have two entries per gen.


Yea. Its let me play a wider variety of games but still feel connected to a series.



okay, just checking.