well, you're doing an awful lot of worrying about something that "need not happen".
Really?
yes.
The consumer climate today is much different from the 90s when the videogame demographic was in its infancy and consisting of mostly sub-20 something year olds. And nowadays, people have a lot more to lose; there's more incentive to encourage and/or enforce synergy. Viral promotional campaigns that cross mediums (beyond just ads in comics) is really not that hard of a concept to grasp.
and yet, nothing you've discussed has happened. not in the cold and distant 90s you remember, nor this current era. there's also no plans for such things, at least in the foreseeable future. so, it's possible you're absolutely correct about everything, and not only are the rest of us in this thread incorrect, but so are the media companies you're referencing. to which i concede a mighty bravisima.
I'll admit I enjoyed a lot of Joe Kelly's run on JLA; a lot of fan-service there that made me giddy (of course, now that I've grown up a bit, it's harder to admit). But I'll always be able to acknowledge that the writing was terrible: all flair, zero quality.
that's all fine. everyone has geek out moments. but your base claim that batfamily books are of definitively lesser-quality than solo-batman books is still an opinion. potentially one i would even agree with, but something i'd clearly identify as an opinion. and one you paint with incredibly broad strokes, not giving those stories you've graded a fair (or simply "a") try.
If every Batman story up till now used only a minimal amount of characters, refrained from a barrage of team ups, kept the character from corresponding with crossover events (be they family or otherwise), the sales would be two to three times better than what they have been. Bad solo stories and all. Because the writing would be better. "that's just yer opinion pariah!" Yeah. But it's the correct one.
it's an illogical one. based on nothing. like, really,
nothing. i mean, hell, at the very core, the batfamily star "robin" was created only months after batman, and boosted (significantly) the sales of the titular character's books. your theory has already been incorrect for over 70 years!
there's still fewer characters to deal with. Not saying its easy to come up with decent Joker scheme. But focusing your energy on that is more practical than juggling a boatload of characters.
i don't follow - why?
also, what is "too large" a family for you? it sounds like robin is out, but what about alfred? gordon? bullock? penguin? arkham? batmobile? is there a method to your theory? would the "magic number" translate to other characters, like superman? other media, like harry potter? was the cast of cheers too large? or less successful than the more streamlined fraiser spinoff?
And you think it makes sense to make it as difficult as possible for the writer to do said job? Again, I'm not going to put blame squarely on the writer when the conditions are ridiculous and beyond the hope of any writer no matter how good he or she is.
conditions suck. in their job and in ours. writers are paid to make them unsuck as much as possible. granted, i'll readily admit some side stuff (be them crossovers or whatever) are messy, unnecessary, and detrimental. i imagine there are some mornings a writer wakes up, checks his email, and just shakes his head in woe. but until the reverse is true, and the 10 months without "events" produce issues of glorious perfection, i just can't shake the notion.
Wouldn't this mean that it simply would have been better to give the two characters their book rather than something showcased as a Batman feature?
in other cases, maybe. but with morrison's run, it's the very clash of them
being batman and robin that makes the pairing work [for me]. damian acting very much like the cocky asshole version of bruce wayne's son, critiquing the pretender in the cowl, in the middle of a joker attack, etc. there's a great "negative space" aspect to the run.
worth mentioning, as much as i didn't like the idea of the character, i really enjoy damian, at least morrison's. tim is tollerable, if not forgettable. grayson i prefer as nightwing, and out of gotham. every other sidekick (from jean-paul to huntress to spoiler to batgirl to batwoman) i'd much rather not be in my story, and not be in gotham. but damian, very quickly, became very awesome. he's a little shit, but for all the right reasons. there's an ultimate respect for bruce, and an inherent hatred for everyone else. he doesn't feel like he has to prove himself to anyone; rather, everyone has to prove everything to him. he's actually a better bruce than bruce most of the time. the fact that he's like 10 just makes it all the more awesome.
