I was listening to this on the way to work and at this point in the conversation they talk about franchises with yearly releases, wondering why people buy into that, especially with sports games:
(I hope I did this right, it's at 24 minutes in, I tried to link right to that spot)
These are smart game guys who know a lot, but it just struck me how I think they missed something so obvious and it's because professional games people are so out of touch of "normies."
My hot take is: there's nothing wrong with the yearly release franchises! Sports games like Madden and the no-longer-FIFA, Call of Duty, and yes Assassins Creed (not yearly any more but still). My corollary hotter sub-take is that these franchise actual offer good quality- but I am using quality in its engineering sense which I'll explain in a bit.
Sometimes- we just like a thing. And only one IP or franchise delivers that specific thing, and we want more of it. It's like another season of a beloved TV show. Not all of us are looking for freaking art or innovation all the time, here. It boggles my mind how this is so hard a concept to understand. It doesn't make fans suckers or stupid or ignorant about other or better games- it's ok to not give a shit, honestly.
For sports games, the value of the yearly release is the updated rosters. Madden uses current actual players, who of course come and go. I think it's fair to assume that many if not the vast majority of Madden players also actually watch NFL football, bet on the games, play fantasy football, etc (I recently had a conversation with someone where I mentioned that I no longer watch football and he asked "what do you do on Sundays?") Sports matter to people! Gamrs don't care, that's fine, but it's real. So you play Madden and of course it's cooler with the same players represented in your game. Plus you're playing with your friends so having the same, and latest, version, makes obvious sense.
It's funny that in the linked podcast one of them does mention roster updates without realizing how crucial that is, and that's just because games people aren't into this.
Call of Duty gets mocked for it being the same thing every year but... so what? It's not actually the same- the graphics are better, the campaigns are new- it's an iteration. Making fun of it for not being radically different or just going away is extremely snobby. I have and will continue harshly criticize nostalgia and unoriginal remakes and continuations but that is different than iterating on known experiences. New Call of Duty games, AFAIK, aren't trying to tap into some weak nostalgia or promising anything they aren't- it's like, hey, you like to do a war, here's another war.
As for quality- what I mean is, that stuff works the way it's supposed to. I think last year's Madden had some bugs and it was a big freaking scandal. For a yearly release franchise that's existed for, what, 30 years- think about how remarkable that is. Every year they release a game that freaking works. You can dismiss that because they just redo the same thing but, yes, sure.. every year they give people what they want well. Quality in this sense is not the same thing as innovation and originality. The Assassins Creed franchised sacrificed creativity for quality when they switched to the "RPG mechanics" model- I have not experienced a single bug in AC I can remember in 7 years. I rarely see complaints about quality for Call of Duty games, the complaints are creative choices.
It may seem silly to some that a person would buy PS5 and just play NBA2K and MLB the Show but it's not a wrong or bad choice for entertainment at all.