If you look, you'll see that I never actually said that "milking" means "releasing a lot of titles". Annual release schedules aren't an issue, so long as quality isn't allowed to diminish as a result. Indeed, you could release a new title in the same franchise every month, and still not be truly milking it, if there's strong quality and continued innovation to keep the games from becoming just more of the same.

Essentially, there are three elements to consider when trying to decide whether a franchise is being milked:

1. Frequency of release - when a franchise sees a significant ramp-up of release frequency in a consistent manner (two games in one year, once, is not a ramp-up, it's an anomaly), it's usually due to a developer/publisher trying to get as much as they can out of that franchise.

2. Use of gimmicks - "Guitar Hero: Van Halen" (Because they couldn't just have a Van Halen track pack) is a strong demonstration of this. Rather than coming up with actual new content, they go with easy-to-implement, trivial gimmicks that are more about being able to put it on the box than actually innovating. Let me be clear, here, that if it's just something within the game that does things a bit differently (like motion in Super Mario Galaxy), that's not a gimmick. A gimmick is where it's something added to be listed on the box (you wouldn't see "Swing your Wiimote to attack" on the Super Mario Galaxy box) - think "Become a Van Halen cover band, play all of their songs!".

3. Sales downturn - when a franchise is being milked, the sales always turn downward per game. This downward turn is a strong sign that they're flooding the market with similar games, because people will only buy one of the entries, and sales will be split significantly... but for a short time, total sales across all entries will be a little higher, which is what they're going for by milking the franchise.

The term should have a negative connotation. As far as I'm concerned, the terms should be a reference to "Milking it dry" - that is, milking until there's nothing left. Which is why I don't consider CoD to currently be a case of milking, despite being an annual release that trades on its name to help boost sales.

As I noted, there's just signs that Activision are starting to think about milking it. That they took Sledgehammer Games off their spinoff title in order to have more people working on their main one tells me that they're not quite there, yet. But I suspect that they'll begin to milk it in a couple of years. Indeed, I'm going to make the call - after a slight downturn in sales in 2013 (which will mostly be driven by lack of same management at Infinity Ward, combined with competition from the new company they made at EA), Activision will have Sledgehammer Games finish off their spinoff, and at least one other CoD title will be announced as well. There will be three different CoD titles in 2013, I predict, and none will sell as well as World at War did, let alone any of the more recent ones.

I could be mistaken on this prediction. But Activision's track record hasn't been good.

I consider games like GH and Marvel VS Capcom 3, milked. When a franchise either omits stuff, for the sake of a better version later. Or there's a million versions coming out the same year.

So for me it falls down to a few things: Quality, version amounts, pricing, and broken promises. If the game falls into these areas. And screws them up, It's milked.

SSF4 is milked

I find the definition of milking to be, "When the frequent releases of a product cause over saturation, declining sales, andor consumer disinterest and frustration."

Milking is not a good business practice and deserves to be used in a snide manner. Milking, as stated by several in this thread, is done for short term gains, often at expense of the long term.

GH and RB are great examples. It wasn't long after the sales decline the activision and viacom closed production. These two games really need to be case studies for the milking and the damage it does. What is sad is EA and Activision look to repeat history with battlefield and Call of Duty.

Capcom has milking down to a science sadly. Look at SF4, we see decreasing sales at each revision however each game was probably financially successful. When SF5 comes out it will bring back consumer confidence and the whole thing starts over again.

I think most games that release annually go down in quality, just look at assassin's creed, only been downhill since the first game. What was once a fresh, cool great looking game, is now a ugly, tired, repetitive, boring game.

I think its bad in a sense where it shows a lack of creativity or ability to create something new. That said, there are plenty of ways companies mixes things up to keep it fresh. That's all they need to do really.

well to be fair every rerelease was cheaper than the last, but i could see how some were annoyed

The answer is rhetorical based upon your answer. A lot of people are really stupid. You should pay them no mind really, because anyone who doesn't take the time to do a subjective analysis isn't someone who has a opinion that matters.  You should give as much credit to rabbid fanboys as you give to that crazy guy on the corner. The truth is there are a lot of people that missuse the term, and frankly abuse the term. Effectively they are milking the term milking. Remember what I said in my opening paragraph. Minimum effort for the Maximum gain. It doesn't take much effort to use a single word as the entirety of your argument, but the slur itself has maximum impact. Anyone who tells you numbers equal milking. Is Someone who doesn't actually have a case to make. Reasonable posters will seldom use the term, and if they do they make damn sure to back it up with something more substantial.

It's not just gamers it's a trait of humanity.

It's literally the word indignation.

People get really agitated about the though of being treated unfairly. When the riots in Egypt became mainstream news, there were many analysts who tried to explain why the riots erupted. The cause was the feeling that people were suffering at the benefit of someone else ( I forget the specifics). It turns out many riots or revolutions have similar beginnings. Being starving and poor is not enough. Being starving and poor while someone else profits from your suffering makes people rise to action.

Basically being milked is thought of unfair treatment to that person for whatever reason.