Perhaps destroyed is too harsh of a word in most cases. But I'm sure everyone gets the point. Anyways...

Anyone else hate it, when there's a game series(tv series, book series, movie series, etc) you've been playing(watching, reading) for a very long time, and, as the series goes on, the developers(directors, producers, writers, etc) start to add and remove features (or characters, parts to the story, etc) to appeal to a whole new and different generation of gamers (movie watchers, readers)?

Say there's this great open world RPG game series you've been playing for ~17 years, and then all of a sudden, the developers start trying to appeal to a large group of people who play games (from a totally different genre) that reward you for having shorter attention spans. It sort of bums you out. I'm not sure what it is. I think it's that, after you've put in so many hours (especially when you've played/watched/read from the beginning) with a companies product, and you've been loyal so long, you sort of feel "entitled" to having things be a certain way.

I know a lot of people were upset with the direction Bioware took with Mass Effect after the first one.

It doesn't even have to be a video game. I have friends that have complained about every DnD rule-set that's came out after 2.5.

Or how about George Lucas and his SW prequels/Indiana Jones sequel?

How about movies? TV shows? Books?

Dragon Age 2.

[post stolen by Kyuuen]

SWG

The CURB was the building blocks of the coffin for this game and the NGE was the nails that finally put it in the grave. They insist it still has a "Great" subscriber base which is a bunch of garbage and now it's just like every other run of the mill game. It was such a great game they even have that SWG emulator out there and imho Lucas needs to take notice of that. Ever since smedly was elected as leader of SoE deciding things it has gone down hill for many games including EverQuest 2. He said point blank that there wouldn't be a micro-transaction system for EQ2, but not a month later broke his word introducing the Station Store.

He touted it as "O it's something minor", but once you get into that micro-transaction world it becomes a slippery slope to the point it snowballs down hill.

Oddly enough I wasn't half as disappointed with the Dragon Age 2 demo as I was with Mass Effect 2.

Heres my list:

Transformers 2
Every Pirates of Caribbean movie after first one
Oblivion + Skyrim
Kanye West's 808's and Heart Break's (still good)
Xbox Kinect
Crysis 2

games I wish appealed to the masses more:

Every game produced by capcom
The Skate series

Oblivion to Skyrim...

Now that's upsetting. If Bethesda were to start appealing to the masses now we'd already co-op. Co-op! Co-op in our single player game! :cryvaultboy:

Personally, I'm upset at Spore. Good game, for sure, but not what it was going to be. Look at all the early builds, the tech demos, you'll see that it was once much, much more complex.

Fable series.
Sims series.

That'll be the next one, haha. To be fair, I used to keep up with the previews and stuff until I was getting so annoyed by it being dumbed down that I just told myself I'd play it blind so I can just appreciate the game and not as an appendage to earlier games. I just miss my skills...

I fail to see how the Sims series has been dumbed down, although I've never played TS1. From what I understand though, TS2 is more complex with the aging and what not.

As for Fable, yeah... yeah that's been dumbed down.

....
Shadowrun
And then there be that [censored] x-com remake

Damaged? Definitely. Destroyed? Ask me again after I've tried Skyrim.

Definitely agree, Peter could've made Fable really interesting and a good game to play but nope they just made it interesting and dull.

Maybe Holy Assassin meant the transition from Sims 2 to 3. At least that's what I think. Sims 3 took a lot of the control and decision-making away from the player, opting to have you focus on one household rather than an entire neighborhood. (Among other changes, while you play one household, time is still passing in your neighborhood. So you could technically have multiple households, but while you're playing one, sims in the other may decide to marry random NPCs/spawn kids/whatever without your approval.) Which I'm sure appeals to some people, but for others (like me) the whole appeal in Sims 2 was developing an entire neighborhood and micro-managing it all. And of course ruling over it with an iron fist. Having that level of control/development yanked away was jarring, and the major reason why I won't buy TS3. I'll stick with my sprawling, six-generations-and-counting neighborhood I've got set up in TS2, thanks.

Star Wars becoming more jedi-centric than it was... I like the series for the society, not the friggin' space police...

Mass Effect Series
Fable Series
Halo Series

I do have major concerns that it will happen which is a major shame.

You beat me to it.

...how? Halo is the mascot of Xbox..its supposed to appeal to the masses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq3eLdixvCc

"MY LIFESTYLE DETERMINES MY DEATH STYLE"
-Stupidest Lyric EVER

However:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUMqqVOlJBs

No. Why should I care? The games/books/films I love are the games/books/films I love, and nobody can take that away.

This can be deactivated in the options.

I find that the Sims series has been getting better and better with each main title. I started with Sims 1 and really loved it. But there was one thing that bothered me: Aging.
I always found myself drowning my families' children because I couldn't tolerate them anymore.
The Sims 2 added this along with the much-needed new 3D engine.
But then there was one thing bothering me: You couldn't visit your neighbors and the game would need to load each new area. When you have all the expansions, it takes a lot of time to visit a community lot.

So Sims 3 improved on this by loading most of the stuff already, needing only a quick load when you enter a new area. While still keeping Aging and the base features from Sims 2.

The only thing that has ruined TS3 for me is that darn interaction hiccup bug that has been there since the beginning and was only getting worse with every expansion and new interactions. And now they announce an expansion pack that is completely focused on new interactions for all age groups. I'm already at about ten hours from start to complete neighbourhood freeze. That time can't really get much shorter now, in vanilla TS3 it only starts once close to 100 hours in one neighbourhood.
/random rant off