Most milked franchise

[King of the Sandbox]

Pokemon, hands down. Their toy empire alone is ridiculous.

 

[johnstamos]

Mario final fantasy and sonic.
most mario games are at least decent though, sonic hasn't been fun in forever and final fantasy is just well.... lame.

 

[Particulate]

I can give you three.

Call of Duty
Halo
Final Fantasy

The first is the most obvious. The rapid release of each "copy/paste" title and the overabundance of overpriced DLC make that clear.

With Halo, the game releases don't occur that often but the franchise itself, DLC and just the brand name, are milked by Microsoft like I've rarely seen.

I know some will argue that Final Fantasy doesn't count because it's been around for more than a decade, but that doesn't change the fact that there's been well over twenty different games, remakes, reboots, and spin-offs within the series. Over twenty. At this point, even as they announce more titles to come, it's painfully obvious Square-Enix is milking the franchise.

I think Madden wins. At least with CoD, Halo, and Final Fantasy you're getting something of a new storyline or something.... not just a roster update.

 

[omega 616]

Half-Life. Valve has based all their reputation on [it]...

Anything made by nintendo? Sonic, Mario, Zelda are all milked dry.

wat

OT: As far as video game publishers go, Activision would be the biggest continuous offender, with EA coming close second. Perhaps Nintendo qualifies.

In general, the most milked franchise would be Star Wars.

Well, that was a rather pointless topic, wasn't it?

I was meant to double tap enter after "nintendo?"

I know Sonic isn't made by nintendo, that would be silly.

I have no idea what else to put here.

 

[Rossmallo]

Halo. Nothing more needs saying.

Actually, please explain. I have a hard time figuring out how Halo is a milked franchise... except for ODST, but I just try to forget about that one. Every time I think about it, I have bad dreams and then take out the disk and hold a sword over it for half an hour.

ODST. Wars. Possibly Reach.

And the fact that I heard they're releasing THREE NEW GAMES for the bloody franchise.

 

[veloper]

The Sims

dozens of little expansion packs for those games.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

If we're talking about games, then franchises like Star Wars, Pokemon, Mario, ect...

 

[spartandude]

Mario and Starwars

i dont get how Halo and Call of Duty (despite how much i hate it) are milked

 

[spartandude]

I felt like I had to point a few things out here.

Firstly, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Decay were not made by Valve. They were made by Gearbox and other assorted companies on the behest of Sierra. So in a way, you are correct in that Sierra tried to milk the franchise back then.

However, since then the only games in the series have been Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2 (which one could really consider just one game split in two), and to a lesser degree Portal 1 and 2.

Lost coast was barely a blurb and was only a single map designed to show off the Source engines brand-spankin' new lighting engine.

Lastly, you're counting ports as "milking" a franchise? Really? That's a hell of a stretch and even if we were to take this into account, series such as Halo, Final Fantasy, or even Assassin's Creed are FAR more egregious in this area.

I'm not denying that the series has been long running, but I'd hardly consider it to being a brand that's "milked".

Actually Half-Life, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift, and Half-Life: Decay where developed by Valve and Gearbox, and I liked Opposing Force. Besides, like I've said I didn't start to hate the series until Half-Life 2.

But to me long running plus stagnating does somewhat equate milked. Halo has at least changed a little from one title to the next, and even branched out to a different genre with Halo Wars. And, Final Fantasy tends to reinvent itself with each entry. Doesn't mean I've enjoyed every entry in those series, some have been hit or miss, but at least they've never made me give up on a series completely like Half-Life 2 did.

Halo Wars was an example of milking, just to be clear milking a franchise is essentially when put the franchises title on your product (ie starwars) just to make it sell, half Life doesnt fit into that. hell i hate Call Of Duty but i wouldnt say that is milking it even though its been the same since number 4 minus quality

also i could be wrong but i swear lost coast is free

 

[gbemery]

Mario
Star Wars
Final Fantasy
Sonic (that's right I said it)
Call of Duty
pretty much any sports titles

 

[spartandude]

Yeah, kinda puts it into perspective. I'm not defending either, i'm just saying for a franchise to be "milked" there has to be a lot of titles for it.

not always, for example Halo has only a few games but i would say that Halo Wars was an example of milking (but thats only one bit for the franchise nothing much)

also Bioshock 2 was (arguably) milking

 

[Spartan448]

Halo. Nothing more needs saying.

Actually, please explain. I have a hard time figuring out how Halo is a milked franchise... except for ODST, but I just try to forget about that one. Every time I think about it, I have bad dreams and then take out the disk and hold a sword over it for half an hour.

ODST. Wars. Possibly Reach.

And the fact that I heard they're releasing THREE NEW GAMES for the bloody franchise.

As I said above, ODST WAS a huge mistake. It was more of a game for people who cared more about the Halo universe than actual gameplay. Same with Reach, but for a different reason. Reach just completely fucked up the Halo timeline, but it WAS a good game that improved on good ideas like Firefight and Forge. You can't really fault Wars as that WAS an interesting concept. It's hard to do an RTS for a series like Halo, without adding in the fact that it has to be a console RTS. It's a shame that Ensemble closed its doors, because they did a really good job.

Also, 4 new games, with the H1 Reboot. And I really don't fault them for that.

1: Making a reboot of what was not only the best game of the franchise, but the first real successful console FPS, is a great way to energize the market and encourage people to buy the new series or get into the old series. That's just business strategy.

2: The series could really use the new trilogy. I mean, come on. What kind of ending is leaving the main character stranded in space careening towards a planet? You REALLY think that's an acceptable ending? Come on, it'd be like ending Harry Potter with Harry and Voldemort dissappearing into some sort of magical vortex. People wouldn't accept it as an ending. They need closure, and this new trilogy will give it to them.

Plus, I think it would be best to wait and see how the new trilogy comes out before we say wether or not they could be considered "milking" or not.

 

[Vigormortis]

Actually Half-Life, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift, and Half-Life: Decay where developed by Valve and Gearbox, and I liked Opposing Force. Besides, like I've said I didn't start to hate the series until Half-Life 2.

But to me long running plus stagnating does somewhat equate milked. Halo has at least changed a little from one title to the next, and even branched out to a different genre with Halo Wars. And, Final Fantasy tends to reinvent itself with each entry. Doesn't mean I've enjoyed every entry in those series, some have been hit or miss, but at least they've never made me give up on a series completely like Half-Life 2 did.

It seems like there's a general misunderstanding as to what someone means when they say a company is "milking" a brand or series.

Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Decay were developed by Gearbox. (Valve's name is accredited only because it made the game and engine these addons were built upon) And, as I had said before, Gearbox did this under the control of Sierra who, at the time, owned the rights to Half-Life, not Valve. Thus, only Half-Life 1 and it's addons could be viewed as being "milked" by Sierra. Effectively meaning they were rehashing the same formula in the hopes of making bank of the popularity of the first.

This is the essence of "milking" a brand. It's bringing a product to market and placing a title on it from a series that has sold well in the past. Regardless of how similar or different it may be. Final Fantasy is a perfect example of this. Even though many of the games are different, in many different ways, they still bare the same moniker. In most cases this wouldn't be necessary as each game could be sold under any name, especially given how disparate they are. However, Square puts them out with that Final Fantasy brand name because they're using the name as a way to sell the product. Relying on brand recognition and banking on people associating the new game with one from the past they liked. This is the essence of "milking" a brand.

On a side note, and you can chalk much of what I'm about to say to opinion, I have to say I'd hardly consider Half-Life as stagnating. Each game has been Valve attempting something new. Some new game mechanic, story telling technique, or tech idea. Even Episode 1 did this. And, just like Halo, the series has branched out into other genres. Portal and Portal 2, for example.

 

[InfectedStar]

Final Fantasy

 

[General Ken8]

Star wars, no doubt =________=

Definitely, this was going to be my reply. And not just in terms of games either.
Yahtzee said some incredibly funny metaphor about how Star Wars has been milked so much, but I can't remember what it was

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Sonic.