It's not new you know.
Have you ever heard the complaints about how there's too many sequels in games and media? People are tired of Call of Duty games or a spinoff of CSI and so on? Yeah, you know the drill – everything is so unoriginal.
As an Elder Geek let me note that I've seen this before.
There were eight Wizardry games Since 1981, plus spinoffs and repackaging. There were nine Ultima games since 1980 plus all sorts of spinoffs (and yes an MMO). I could go on.
Television? 'Happy Days' gave us three spinoffs that I remember.
Movies? Did 'Star Wars' end? 'Canonball Run' got a sequel and was inspired by another film. I'm still figuring out how much was done with 'Smokey and the Bandit' as it had regular AND TV movies.
I could go on, but I think I'm depressing myself at this point.
Look, we may complain about Sequelitis, but it's not new. It's been around for years (what you think ONE 'Flash Gordon' serial was enough?). We don't have room to complain as if this is something new.
Here's my theory:
For years we had more and more innovative media, more and more foreign media, more and more television stations, and more people able to make new and cool stuff. The last few years (decades?) we had a burst of new.
Well things have tightened up economically, people are playing it safe, and people who normally might be innovators going "OK time to be careful and go for a sequel." This is not abnormal, its a change back to the way things were.
So, nothing new is happening. It's just we got used to a lot of new.