Whether we’re talking about a tabletop roleplaying game, a video game, or a movie franchise, when a new IP launches, success isn’t always immediate. In fact, it often takes more than one attempt to win mass appeal.
History shows that pop culture products frequently achieve breakout success not with the first or second iteration, but with the third.
You see this phenomenon across various mainstream intellectual properties: The third version becomes the turning point for mainstream popularity.
Let’s start with Dungeons & Dragons. The original 1974 release was a niche hit, capturing the attention of dedicated hobbyists but failing to break into the wider culture. Second Edition, released in 1989, was still largely confined to existing fans and actually lost market share. It wasn’t until the release of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition in the year 2000 that the game exploded in popularity.
Third Edition streamlined gameplay, introduced more card and video game-like mechanics, and benefited from better marketing. It hit at the perfect moment, when fantasy was poised to take the mainstream by storm. This iteration of the game brought D&D into the limelight. Third Edition wasn’t just another version—it was the iteration that established D&D as a fixture of pop culture.
But getting back to video games …
Another franchise that exemplifies this “Rule of Three” is Grand Theft Auto. The first two games in the series, released in 1997 and 1999, were modest successes in the video game world but remained relatively niche. Both games featured a top-down view and simple mechanics that didn’t yet capture the expansive, cinematic qualities that the series would become known for.
Then came Grand Theft Auto III in 2001. By switching to a fully realized 3D open-world format, the game revolutionized how players interacted with video game environments. This third installment of the series presented a city that felt more like a real, living environement than ever before; complete with an intricate storyline and unparalleled freedom of player choice. GTA III became a cultural phenomenon, transforming the franchise into a blockbuster and establishing it as a leader in the gaming industry. The first two games laid the groundwork, but it was the third that made it a household name.
And on the subject of autos …
The Fast & Furious franchise also demonstrates how a third iteration can redefine and level up a product. The Fast and the Furious (2001) was a modestly successful street racing film with a cult following. Its sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), did decently but failed to move the series beyond its niche appeal.
I’m going to catch flak for saying this, but it was The Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) that transformed the frnachise.
While Tokyo Drift was technically the third installment, it’s better seen as a soft reboot. This movie broadened the series’ scope and set up for the subsequent shift in focus from street racing to heist action that would propel the franchise to mega-hit status. The real breakout came with the release of Fast & Furious (2009), the fourth movie that acted as the payoff to Tokyo Drift, which reinvigorated the franchise and set it on a path toward becoming one of the highest-grossing film series of all time.
So what is it about the third try that leads to breakthrough success?
By the time a product reaches its third version, creators have usually learned from previous mistakes, refined their approach, and honed in on what resonates with audiences. They strike a balance between what fans love about the original and what needs to be improved. Moreover, the third attempt often arrives when nostalgia has started building around the earlier versions, allowing for a reinvention that feels fresh but familiar.
Then again, sometimes the first two versions attract the notice of a global megacorp that buys out the creators and pumps supertanker full of marketing money into the IP.
Either way, the Rule of Three highlights the importance of persistence. Sometimes a concept just needs time to mature and find its audience (or a sugar daddy patron). The groundwork laid by the first two versions makes it possible for the third iteration to succeed.
Sometimes, the third time really is the charm. Many of pop culture’s most beloved franchises didn’t hit their stride right out of the gate—they needed time, refinement, and often a big cash infusion, to carve out their place in the zeitgeist.
So if you’re planning to launch a new novel, comic, or game, remember that success might be waiting for you to get third-time lucky.
The flip side of the Rule of 3 is the Sophomore Jinx, which my epic Arkwright Cycle bucked by finding record success its second time out. The smash hit crowdfunder is over, but readers who missed the landmark campaign aren’t entirely out of luck.
For a limited time, you can get a select number of special bundles and exclusive items through Lord of Fate’s page on Kickstarter. The campaign-only deals on the Burned Book audiobook, the Lord of Fate special hardcover, and the full set of paperbacks are all gone, but you can still get them early for a modest late pledge premium.
So if you missed the historic campaign but still want early exclusive items, get them on Kickstarter while late pledges last.
Note: 3rd Edition was Wizard of the Coast’s first D&D edition, since they bought either D&D or all of TSR.
And then John Wick 3, well…the less said, the better.
As you mentioned on the patron Discord, John Wick 3 was the exception that proves the rule.
Completely unrelated to topic, but I will definitely be copying that pic of the purple robot dinosaur saying “Whazzup” to “torture” my friends with later…
Congrats on book funding success, and I look forward to buying DRM free copies of your Xseed books soon from your own online store!
By all means
Thank you!
Just made some major progress on that front last night. Stay tuned for more.
I’d expect the Rule to hold up particularly well in videogaming as opposed to other mediums such as film. The reason is simple; there’s more things you can carry over between games than there is in non-interactive media. If you’re writing your second book or second film, you can’t really re-use the previous plot (when you do, it’s the old trope of the Carbon Copy Sequel, which usually fails). You can re-use characters, or some threads that were left dangling, but there’s only so much that can be salvaged. On the other hand, you can and usually do re-use much of the actual code between games. The core mechanics are usually better-understood and the devs can focus on adding cool twists to the gameplay, or increasing scale and spectacle. Put it this way: when a movie sequel is better than the original, that’s exceptional. When a videogame sequel is better than the original, that’s expected.
Videogames often go through the following process:
1.) Highly innovative, but due to this it is riddled with bugs, balance issues, unexpected exploits, limitations, etc.
2.) Fixes the problems in 1 and expands the content, but at its core is the same game.
3.) Rebuilds the game from the ground up using the lessons learned from 1 and 2.
Examples of this working well include Heroes of Might and Magic, Total War, The Elder Scrolls, Civilization (counting Alpha Centauri as 3) and Warcraft (counting Starcraft as 3).
The aforementioned GTA is interesting because it did it twice: GTA 2 was a polished version of GTA 1, but then GTA 3 redid things from the ground up. Vice City was basically a polished version of GTA 3, but San Andreas was designed differently from the ground up (and I think would still be considered the best version of GTA.) The “City Building” series from Impressions did the same thing: Caesar 1 gets polished by Caesar 2, but Casesar 3 mixes things up. Pharaoh is pretty similar to Caesar 3 (just in Egypt and with some new features) but Zeus uses a dramatically different system.
Of course this isn’t universal. There are plenty of games where things started great and declined when they tried to reinvent things later (Thief is a great example of this.) Sometimes the way that the game is reshuffled on the third is too controversial, and people default to the polished 2nd game (this happened with both Age of Empires and Master of Orion.)
Minor disagreement on AD&D. It never got a Version 3, though 1 and 2 received minor updates. D&D 3e was really WotC Version 1…a different game than AD&D. WotC 3 (called D&D 5e) thus supports your rule of the “Third”.
By the according-to-Hoyle reckoning, your’re correct. But, the main thrust of this post concerns marketing and public perception. Ask current D&D players how many editions of the game there’ve been, and the vast majority will say “five”. They will also cite 3rd ed. as the third.
Confusing our niche for the mainstream is a category error our side makes too often.
Given the popularity of the game in 80s culture and today, I’d suggest D&D is less about the “third time’s the charm” and more an example of the ‘alternating’ case of pop culture–cases where you swing between success and failure. AD&D, 3E, and 5E have all been big commercial successes, while 2E and 4E, less so (despite my own preference for them over their counterparts 🙂 ). The most blatant example of this is the original Star Trek films.