Does a sim need constant fresh content or patches to remain fresh and alive ?

It seems to me that for a sim to be successful over the long term it needs a constant flow of fresh content or patches. Il2 and the ArmA series seem to be two of the best examples in this regard. It doesn't need anything major, maybe nothing more than a regular list of bug fixes, (two weeks anybody) hopefully more, but for this genre to continue it seems an absolute must to do this to retain interest.

It takes me back a few years but I can still clearly remember the frenzied anticipation whenever a patch was due in the original IL2. When RoF first came out it was stated or possibly just alluded too that buying more aircraft would pay for technical improvements in the game engine, along with bug fixes and obviously new content (aircraft). This, certainly in the early days seemed to indeed be the case but overtime patches seemed to become more drawn out and hoped for revisions of possible long standing issues along with general bug squashing, less and less likely, not to mention improvements in the game engine as part of investing in the sim in general. It appears that interest in RoF, (this is possibly just my imagination) has slowly waned along with this decline in apparent commitment from the developers. A very good sim that with a slightly different approach from the developers (with all that implies) might have had a longer, wider appeal for many more years to come rather than a gentle fading away, long before it's time.