I haven't been on TYM in quite some time, but if I recall correctly, there always seems to be a desire in a significant part of the community here to "promote" or "grow" the franchise, with the thinking that this will somehow better these games as a result. I think that is a very suspect proposition. The bigger the franchise grows the less influence purists and enthusiasts like those on TYM will have as the value of their contribution to the profits of the company will have decreased relative to the increase in non-purists. This means that the developers will tailor their strategies to a wider, casual audience that doesn't care all that much about the traditions of the game, its lore, obscure characters, etc.
Taking FPS shooters as an example, a lot of the games that were all quite distinctive at one time--Ghost Recon, Rainbox Six, Battlefield, COD--have all experienced significant convergence as they attempt to appeal to largely the same massive, casual audience that didn't give too much of a damn about how any of them were originally envisioned. The larger MK gets the less developers will care about continuity, and more about grabbing as a large an audience as possible at the risk of diluting some of that distinctiveness.
