I’m having a hard time with your parallels. What was the first product that sold millions and then the second product that was just handed over that critics deemed terrible? 7 Days to Die is the House Flipper’s first game. I was thinking you possibly meant A16 and prior was the first product and A17+ was the second product but then that wouldn’t fit the 8 years scenario since it hasn’t been nearly that long since A17 came out.
Imagine Bowie selling millions of pre-ordered copies of his first album, one year before the album's actual release.
The millions of investors were promised a full album with lyrics, vocals, guitars, bass, drums, synths, organs, pianos, backing vocals, harmonies, and a full album of 20 songs, all of which tell a cohesive themed story. In one year's time the album would be considered "Gold" status, or a completed product released in full.
Then, a year later, he releases the album but it's just a recording of him literally reading partial lyrics to 5 songs. No instruments. No singing. Just him speaking some of the lyrics for 5 songs.
A year later he has finally released an updated album which still doesn't deliver all that he promised. Album v2 is just 20 songs of spoken lyrics and him strumming a guitar for 5 minutes.
A year later he adds some bass and drums to 11 tracks.
A year later he adds piano and organs.
After 4 years, all 20 songs now have guitar, bass, and drums.
5 years in, all the instruments except synths and vocals are done on all 20 songs.
6 years in, he has now finally added vocals. All the guitar and bass tracks that fans were really enjoying, despite having to wait for years to hear them, have now been removed and replaced with random sound clips of monkeys banging trash can lids together.
7 years in, After getting lots of negative feedback about the trash monkeys, Bowie decides that all the contractual obligations and promises mean nothing, he now focuses on adding more trash monkeys.
8 years in. Fueld by steroids and coke, Bowie has now completely taken out at least half of the elements of his album that people really enjoy and just replaced it with more monkey sounds. They now not only bang on trash cans, they also screech and throw feces onto walls. Fans continue to hate it, so he diverts a lot of the money he should be paying to the musicians helping him complete his album, and instead diverts those funds into the pockets of shills and fanbois who he can pay to improve his public image, and hopefully convince everyone that what they're listening to is purest art, not monkeys banging on trash cans.