This is absolutely a case of getting in, killing the competition, then jacking the price and tanking the quality.
And because it’s a service, despite using it for years and paying all that money into it, as soon as you leave you have nothing. All those games are just gone.
They do make changes throughout the series, but every new game is a complete reset to a basic game so they can sell you all the DLC and expansions to make it into a full game.
I do this for a lot of games, but definitely for the Civ games. I play one generation behind because I can get the entire package for a reasonable price. And let’s be honest, I have shitloads of other games to play in the meantime. I’m not missing anything.