I was working earlier tonight and I was some advertising for Tom Clancy's The Division. Thing was the one prominent phase on the cut out kind of threw me off.

"Best New Franchise"

Am I the only one who finds this very odd? There are a few ways to look at this and it just left me confused.

Tom Clancy games are technically already a franchise, so you can't call it new.

The Division is new, but there's only one game in this very, loose definition of a "franchise." It hasn't spawned a sequel yet probably will. Kind of counting your chickens before they hatch, eh?

Do people separate Tom Clancy games in sub-categories and sub-genres? I'm not saying they're all the same but I've never heard anymore go roto-rooter and do that.

Am I missing another angle here? That wording just made no sense to me.

I just realized Tom Clancy the author and Tom Clancy the Rainbow Six guy were the same person. And also that he died a few years ago.

Never played any of the games, but I guess it makes sense. Star Wars and Indiana Jones are different franchises, not movies in the George Lucas franchise.

Why not?  Tacking a content creator's name onto something doesn't automatically make something a series.  Just because Boom Blox and The Dig both had Steven Spielberg's name attached doesn't mean that they're a franchise.  My biggest confusion with this whole deal is how long can they keep using Tom Clancy's name on video games after his death?  Was this something he worked on a long time ago that's just now coming to fruition?

This says that the concept work was in development for several years, implying he worked on it before his death, although I can't find this information in the linked sources.

Hadn't heard about this. Went to Wikipedia, saw this

"The Division takes place in mid-crisis Manhattan, an open world with destructive environments that are free for players to explore. The player's mission is to restore order by investigating the source of a virus."

Sounds a bit like Resident Evil and/or The Last of Us. By the way, what exactly does it mean when games are advertised as "Tom Clancy's so-and-so"? I'm guessing it really doesn't mean much but is used as advertisement.