

Popularity leads to bigger budgets from investors and shareholders.
Bigger budgets demands higher profits.
Higher profit comes most easily from a larger playerbase.
Larger playerbases imply/cause management to push for more casual, less niche, gameplay.
This is why sequalitis and capitalism will continue to ruin games and films. Thank you for reading my CED essay.
Because they fired the guy whose job it was to tell the press who got fired. So there is no longer an official record.