>Of 5 games lines (FoW, TY, ToD, FoaN, GW), 3 of them are dead,
Vietnam always felt to me like it was an attempt to make a square peg fit into a round hole. The iconic combat patrols into the jungle, doesn't work in FoW's 15mm Company-Level scale. It's more appropriate for a 28mm Platoon-Level scale.
Fate of a Nation more closely fits the gameplay that FoW does well, Company-Level mass combat. It also acted a bit like a prototype of Team Yankee, introducing some more modern combat elements. But it suffered from spammy bad guys, and from the Arab-Israeli wars being unknown to most non-grognard gamers.
And Great War? That was pretty much just Battlefront engaging in a masturbatory circle jerk of a prestige project. Something they did for the 100 year anniversary because they wanted to. Because they felt they needed to. But again, it lacked the appeal to non-historical gamers.
>and unless TY has releases planned beyond Stripes it might die too.
They've produced lists and miniatures for all the major nations. They can probably add some additional units over time, but unless they advance the timeline, we're pretty much set as far as having toys to play with and the rules to use them.
>So why doesn't BF get the same flak that Spartan does for making games and then not supporting them?
There are people genuinely upset about it.
As far as I can figure out 'Nam, FoaN, and Great War were all meant to be limited releases initially that gained some measure of interest. But nowhere near as much as any of the eras from World War II. Causing them to essentially become dead games with small but devoted player bases.
Nam suffered from the US and it's allies having all the cool toys, and the same can be said of the Israelis in FoaN.
Great War I'm not entirely sure about why it never took off. Quite literally nobody in my area even purchased anything for it. The starter boxes sat on a shelf gathering dust.
