"We've been trying to find out, y'know, how could we not see this happening?" You didn't see it coming because you need to grow up. If you haven't grown up you will never figure it out. Catch 22.
It's well established that it takes more then a year to develop a game from scratch. If the same devs are releasing annual games it means they're using existing technology and tacking on a new story and new art. The problems are that the underlying tech is not capable of doing anything more than last year's version, so nothing really new happens. Since it's a sequel intended play it safe and get sales by pleasing players of previous iterations, again, nothing really new happens. This often leads to bestselling games every year, but it can also easily lead to franchise burnout - ala Gutiar Hero.
IMO, two or three releases per franchise, per console generation seems like a viable schedule for keeping a game relevant and fresh.
Isengard was released not long ago, and Riders of Rohan is coming in September. They're doing plenty of major content additions. There are also smaller free new content updates on a roughly monthly basis.
Also, the game store on Vita is awful - they don't even have screen shots where they really need to have vidoe and demos like 3DS. And if you go to the PSN website, it's as if the Vita doesn't even exist. They have surveys asking you about your gaming habits and system(s) and they don't even include Vita.
I think they've only sold 1.2 million Vitas, so they need to do something fast. A price drop would help, along with either bundling a memory card or dropping the price on those as well. The downloadable games could also use a price drop - $15 - 25 for an old PSP game is ridiculous. Finally, they need to add Vita to PlayStatio Plus and give them the "instant game library" and free games, even if they're PSP games, Minis or PSOne classics.
A three month vacation? They always say "taking time off and thinking about new projects" when they're leaving. I say go. Get away from EA and make the great games they used to when they called the shots. If anyone thinks EA isn't influencing/pushing/coercing them to shovel out dumbed down copies of popular games, they're dreaming.
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