The Inevitable Finity of Media
As per the nature of our mortal coil, nothing was made to last forever. Days turn to night, Life wilts and withers away, stars eventually burn out… and media franchises, sooner or later, get stale.
It’s as common a conundrum shared between film, TV and streaming shows, games, and pretty much any other form of entertainment: no matter how hard the people involved may try to keep their works alive and profitable, there will eventually come a point where their magic goose lays its last golden egg. Some folks are able to read the room and lay their project to rest when the time comes, while others with a firmly-defined plan for how it will end will do everything to make sure they stick the landing for a grand finale and prevent this scenario altogether.
But then, you have the people who just don’t know when to quit—or in some cases, the people who knew when they should have and keep pressing on anyway.
Corporatism leaking into the domain of storytellers and designers is probably the easiest reason to pin on such cases, but it can sometimes be the result of personal reasons as well. I can certainly understand the temptation to simply keep going with something for as long as you can: when you get attached to your own world, characters, and stories, you may just feel unable to help yourself. Compared to more corporate-motivated instances of prolonged media, where the end result feels like a soulless, low-life husk, this spin on staleness will feel more akin to overcooking a dish, or adding another layer of icing when you’ve already added fifty.
Sometimes, a show, game, etc. that has gone stale can find a way to recapture its former glory, but many of those instances are few and far between. There are also long-lived series that manage to outlive countless others on account of good writing, luck, and, often thanks to the flexibility found in video games especially, the ability for a series to rapidly switch or transition to entirely new plots, settings, or worlds while still holding the spirit of its predecessors. Think along the lines of Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, and even Star Wars and the MCU. As you might be able to tell by your own personal reaction to one or more of these examples, though, a change of scenery might not mean much if the core elements are overdone or behind the times. In the case of the MCU especially, trying to recapture the same magic as what was designed to be the apex of the project after a decade of buildup might leave folks feeling that anything made after that point is pretty much unnecessary.
To whichever budding writers might find any wisdom in my words, it’s always important to keep a clearly defined end point in mind for your projects if their stories will persist beyond a single installment. Even as your plans and style change throughout the years, and you find (optimistically organic) ways to keep the story going, it never hurts to be thinking about how you want things to culminate and ultimately finish with.
And in the meantime, maybe those ideas that might help a staling IP run just a little longer might be better served as the tinder for new ideas. Even if you’re not keeping the original story going, the idea can live on in a fresh form.
With all that said, just remember that no matter how well-planned, well-received, or enjoyable to make anything is, it will only ever last so long. All you can do is be ready for when the right time comes to turn the page on the old to make room for something new.