entertainment: creamy.

Every company wants to find a 'cash cow', a product or franchise that they can milk for years with increasing profits for very little creative expense.
Movie studios have just emerged from several decades of franchise milking, although the practice is still going strong, we are seeing a bit more creativity as consumers become tired of Saw XXIV and Friday the 13th part 87. The trend has lately been to 'reboot' tired franchises with very little success, and studios are realising that change is required, unfortunately that means adding 3D to the end of a title.

But where the film industry leads, the games industry follows behind by about 10 years, so we are midway through a long drink from the franchise cow. Lately you may have played Guitar Hero 15, Call of Duty 34 and Resident Evil 123. Just days ago Ubisoft, a publisher that has been very restrained in the franchise milking, announced it would be releasing Assassins Creed games on a yearly cycle.

Ranting continues after the break;

I like my Anti-virus software to have regular updates, my Operating System to be regularly patched, but I certainly don't want to be playing the same game every 6 months with a new number shoved on the end.
The franchises that publishers are milking were popular because they were different, because they weren't just another number, so the very act of milking a franchise makes it rubbish. Once you can see your reflection in a turd polishing it more is pointless, and minor improvements to the physics engine so a characters eyelashes blow more realistically in the breeze aren't going to mask the fact I am playing the same quest I did last year while my horse sports some shiny new armour.