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Re:Sigil II, a Doom WAD from J.Romero, has been released by atrettel on Sunday December 10, 2023 @02:04PM (#38593907)
This phenomena is sometimes called the "sophomore slump" [1] in some creative industries and "second-system effect" [2] in software development. To add to your excellent list of reasons why this happens, I'd also add that early success may be the result of spending much more time on the first creative effort than subsequent ones. Some musicians spend years making their first album but then have only a year or two to try to repeat the success for a second album, especially if a label wants them to release another album while they are riding high and before their fame fades (supposedly). Second-system effect refers more specifically to feature creep in second projects in a series, but you can imagine the same thinking applying to creative industries too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophomore_slump

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect

Re:Sigil II, a Doom WAD from J.Romero, has been released by Vecr on Sunday December 10, 2023 @02:54PM (#38594409)
Also regression to the mean, pretty much all successful products are unlikely in some way or another (i.e. required "luck").