Today I will be looking at why media franchises fail.
I will give an example of a good franchise with a bad game that failed, and a good franchise with a good game that failed nonetheless, and how they could have been saved.
Franchise 1: Galidor
Galidor has a pretty neat concept. Change forms from one to another and become a wonderful fighter. It was sponsored by Lego, but it had a fairly decent concept. It had a live-action TV series, games, action figures, and it was very popular. It failed mainly due to copyright problems, but it is an example of how a perfect franchise can fail from a weak link. The weak link? Its PC game. Combine cartoony underperforming graphics (and I do enjoy cartoony graphics), ultra-difficult gameplay, and relatively heavy system requirements (I got lag), and you can kill a kid's game by making it so that not even veteran gamers can beat the first level without being frustrated or getting bored. The free flash game was better (actually, it was awesome). You can find it on GameTap, if you're willing to blow your mind.
Franchise 2: Beyond Good And Evil
Beyond Good and Evil was a relatively cliche plot, but its universe was deep, it had wonderful cartoony graphics (that were optimized wonderfully), but it failed due to a lack of advertising and overall coverage. I would've bought most anything that had its quality, but Beyond Good and Evil lacked what it needed to keep up momentum, and fell behind other games as a gem fit only for those wise enough to pursue it. It's also on GameTap, by the way, if you wanna try it.
My point is this: Remember your audience. Keep everything up to standards, because the weakest link will doom a franchise. Also, if you release a bum product, consider it from all angles before discontinuing a franchise. Only if it forces you to drop the franchise (or damages the franchise so badly nobody would like it anymore, though I never heard of the Galidor PC game until GameTap) should you discontinue a game. Never drop a franchise until you have to, because these franchises both had great merit, but were discontinued no doubt due to their poor performance in these areas.
On the brighter side, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is planned (though not disclosed, a trailer without explicit naming was released), and should be totally awesome.