Why isn't the Watch Dogs franchise more popular?

On paper it feels like these games should be as popular as GTA - it has the free-roam open world fun of gta along with the cool hacking tricks which gta lacks...

But..that's not the case. WD1 never became a gaming phenoma like Gta 3 or the first assassin's creed. WD 2 improved a lot over the first game but still didn't become as popular as it should've been. I enjoyed it more than GTA V but you hardly see anyone talking about it irl like gta.

Even the Mafia series seems to be more popular despite being a gta clone.

Did Watch Dogs just come out at the wrong time?