Not jblow, but the video game industry is extremely dependent on big splash releases. Something like 50% of sales occur in a game's release week.

A few games have managed to become huge hits growing only organically in early access (factorio and rimworld come to mind), but they are extremely special games. That's not something you can replicate with a relatively generic title.

To be fair, I'm not sure there is any path to success for a solid albeit generic game these days. There are just too many releases.