alt Hacker NewsThis is the business model for most of the large gaming companies at this point.
Activision had three or four studios dedicated to Call of Duty leapfrogging each other to release one every year. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty)
Their last (2022, pre-acquisition) annual reports literally spell that out.
> For example, in 2022, revenues associated with our three franchises—Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Candy Crush —collectively accounted for approximately 79% of our net revenues—and a significantly higher percentage of our operating income. We expect that a relatively limited number of popular franchises will continue to produce a disproportionately high percentage of our revenues and profits. - https://investor.activision.com/annual-reports
CoD is a different beast though. In 2021, PlayStation tracked that that 1 million players on their console only had CoD installed and played no other games. Most Ubi franchise aren't that type of game ouside Rainbow Six which has a lot of years on it now.
Ubisoft games used to be varied and innovative and they boiled a dozen IP's down to the exact same open world slop with different coats of paint while sending loved unique titles like Splinter Cell to the graveyard.
It's like the companies who have tried to be the next Destiny or WoW. Those games did not become what they were by copying predecessors but by innovating and creating something new and unique that engaged gamers.
This is what killed Bioware. Decades of innovation, each game something new and different. Improvements on previous design, ne styles of game play... then it became let's just copy what we did last time and what everyone else is doing.