Warcraft and D" are an interesting example of something else :
Of an never-stopping wheel.
There are players of these games telling other games how great these games are ... classics, maybe even ... a new generation grows ... they get told how great these games are ... New generations of gamers grow ... the wheel never stops ...
Perhaps these games will be seen as "classics" one day in the future, and everyone will have forgotten Ultima ... (Except the older generations, of course ...)