They do that with Legacy IPs because most people say well I bought the first one I wouldn’t be a real fan if I didn’t buy the next one.
I hate how accurate this is. However, it can also hurt them because there have been many franchises I’ve refused to buy because I never played the first games and I don’t want to jump into the middle of a story I’m unfamiliar with. I’m a bit of a completionist like that.
I wonder if this is why a lot of games are no longer numbering their new releases and just giving them unique titles. So people don’t think of them as a series and are more willing to buy the latest releases.
On a related topic, I HATE how Call of Duty just made a totally new game and called it Modem Warfare, then started up a new franchise with MWII, MWII, etc. We already had Modern Warfare 1-3! It’s like they’re trying to erase/overwrite their old franchise so when people look them up, they just find the latest games. Very sneaky!
EDIT:
If I could develop a game where customers get nothing and you are required to pay them money. It would be the top funded game by every AAA publisher. Remember the people at the top and especially the shareholders don’t care about games.
This is where microtransactions and DLC (like useless character/weapon skins) come from. The customer gets practically nothing, but they pay the company so much money for it. There are tons of games that thrive on this model (especially mobile games) because selling microtransactions and extra downloadable content that’s just a recoloring of a skin makes way more money than just selling the base game.