With all good things though, there is the danger that they won’t be good forever – keep reading to find out which franchises and series have long passed their best, and which ones are still improving. To conduct the ‘Fandom Abandon’ research, we looked at the biggest movie franchises, video game series, and TV shows, analyzed their IMDB ratings and Metacritic scores, and put them into a graph to reveal how they have fared over time.

Video Games

While there are still some great new IPs launching in the video game world, the biggest selling games across all platforms tend to come from well-known franchises, think Pokémon, Call of Duty, GTA. To find out which ones are still riding high in the ratings, and which ones are long past their best, we analysed Metacritic scores over time.

  1. Tony Hawk -59% Peak: 98% Pro Skater 2 (2000) Lowest: 39% Pro Skater 5 (2015) Latest: 89% Pro Skater 1 + 2 (2020) *Remake
  2. Fallout -40% Peak: 93% Fallout 3 (2008) Lowest and latest: 53% Fallout 76 (2018)
  3. Metal Gear Solid -36% Peak: 96% Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) Lowest and latest: 60% Metal Gear Survive (2018)
  4. Madden NFL -32% Peak: 95% Madden NFL 2003 Lowest and latest: 63% Madden NFL 21
  5. Need for Speed -30% Peak: 89% Hot Pursuit 2 (2002) Lowest: 59% Undercover (2008) Latest: 72% Heat (2019) The Tony Hawk video game series enjoyed a heyday during the early 00s, however ratings tanked when developers introduced the interactive Ride skateboard in 2009. Fallout and Metal Gear Solid saw their biggest drops in quality with their most recent entries, both of which experimented with changes in style and gameplay.

Movies

The biggest grossing movies each year tend to follow a similar pattern to video games, with sequels, remakes, prequels, and crossovers the biggest blockbuster hits each year. Do these billion-dollar franchises improve over time, or are movie moguls better off quitting whilst they’re ahead?

  1. X-Men -28% Peak: 8.1 – Logan (2017) Lowest and latest: 5.3 – New Mutants (2020)
  2. Jurassic Park -22% Peak: 8.1 Jurassic Park (1994) Low point: 5.9 Jurassic Park III (2001) Latest: 6.2 Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom (2018)
  3. Star Wars -18% Peak: 8.7 Empire Strikes Back (1980) Lowest: 6.5 Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002) Latest: 6.9 Rise of Skywalker (2019)
  4. Transformers -18% Peak: 7 Transformers (2007) Lowest: 5.2 Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) Latest 6.8 Bumblebee
  5. The Wizarding World -16% Peak: 8.1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) Low point: 6.5 Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald (2018) The X-Men film franchise has long been criticised for having a fractured and convoluted timeline, something the Avengers films have executed a lot better. The latest installment before Disney takes over, The New Mutants, was criticised as being predictable and lack-lustre. On the flip side, Logan was met with widespread approval and celebrated as the Wolverine film all fans had been waiting for. Overall, fans seem to either love or hate the X-Men films, with the two latest releases receiving the worst ratings since the first film was released in 2000.

TV Series

We have been living in a golden age of high-quality TV, with 1000s of shows available at our fingertips and dedicated fandoms celebrating the hits and condemning the misses of these shows each season.

  1. House of Cards -48% Peak: 8.7 Season 2 (2014) and Season 4 (2016) Lowest and latest: 3.9 Season 6 (2018)
  2. The Simpsons -35% Peak: 8.97 Season 6 (1994) Lowest: 5.47 Season 23 (2011) Latest: 6.7 Season 32 (2020)
  3. Game of Thrones -29% Peak: 9.31 Season 4 (2014) Lowest and latest: 6.4 Season 8 (2019)
  4. Scrubs -22% Peak: 8.47 Season 4 (2004) Lowest and latest: 6.26 Season 9 (2009)
  5. 13 Reasons Why -19% Peak: 8.57 Season 1 (2017) Lowest: 6.37 Season 3 (2019) Latest: 6.7 Season 4 (2020) Netflix’s Political drama House of Cards hit headlines and review forums with accolades and admiration. In fact season 1’s lowest IMDB score was 7.7 for episode 8, every other episode scored between 8.2 and 9.1 – ratings not many shows can boast. The following 4 seasons were as liked, however the final season saw ratings plummet, as Kevin Spacey’s character Frank Underwood leaves the show. Criticisms include a lack of direction, story-telling and imagination.

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