This makes me feel even more uneasy about Double Fine's acquisition by Microsoft: I'm afraid that MS could someday deem the studio redundant and kill it rather than let employees buy it back just like Bungie was allowed to do back then.
The IP reason is such a stupid argument in my opinion, because most of the time the company either ends up doing fuck all with it, or teases with a possible return only to say "lol jk nevermind".
By shutting down a studio instead of selling it off or even letting it buy itself out, Microsoft ensures that no studio it has ever owned can become viable competition.
They benefit by killing off art and culture that could replace or take attention away from the art and culture they already control and profit from. They don't need to profit from it directly.
Would be cool to fight for a part in the contract about microsoft losing ip and trademark(assuming they try to be extra sneaky) rights or have them become public domain if the studio is shut down or the team is broken up too fast
Well I guess they don't want the studio or the talent bad enough, maybe I'm biased but for me it's been so rare for big studios to put out stuff that's actually really fun and innovative so I'd say they need those small studios and I'd love so much to see them be properly valued by big companies
I know a lot of indy game developers do their thing hoping to get rich from it. And there's nothing wrong with that. And they don't all do that. Some people just really love coding and creating, and just want to make a cool game. Nothing wrong with that, either.
But for once, I'd love to see some brilliant founder create a game studio that has some kind of poison pill clause that prevents it from ever going public or it's IP ever being purchased by a large mega-corp. And in my wettest of wet dreams, that idea becomes a meme.
Something tells me that here in the United States of Greed, such a thing is 'un-possible', legally speaking. Our whole corrupt system is set up to make half a dozen business bros get wealthier. They won't tolerate anything that jams a wrench into that machinery.
I don't know that they have a poison pill clause but Gabe is a billionaire who doesn't seem to have interest in having external people direct the company. Thanks to Steam, valve can do what it wants. There is little benefit for them to go public given the extra scrutiny that comes with being a public company.
Yeah, I love Gabe, and I love Steam. Even if it was created because he dropped that installation disk on the floor.
My dream is that the poison pill thing becomes very effective and very common, and I think some folks kind of missed the nuances. Which is fine, that's why we have a forum to hash this stuff out.
I've been doing some market analysis on the viability of indie projects. My brother and I are starting to develop a game after he's finished up his computer science degree (Im a graphics major BTW). Anyway I slice it, the only way to remain profitable would be to have a small team as possible.
I have no idea why a lot of these companies think that growth is actually going to be better for them in the indie space.
I had heard of this, and I appreciate the link to the paper. It's one reason I used the term. My understanding of it is that these seldom actually work in practice. It did not help Twitter, for example. I appreciate the counter-argument. I definitely want this to be a thing.
My older liberal banker brother asked me, small business owning tradesman, why I don't just go start some small community in Montana and live without the dollar, yada yada.
I laughed, he said he's serious, I said "yea, the bankers that own the feds are serious too, and they use that to control what kind of society we decide for ourselves. We don't have the freedom to choose. We have the freedom to choose but only from these two choices. We won't even allow Cuba to do that shit, still today, 60years under embargo. And they're their own country! The bankers would erase me in a heartbeat".
I mean, Larian is pretty much that. Instead of just doing Baldur's Gate 4 although Hasbro fired all their contact people and probably would have urged Larian to rush a sequel, they are instead during an IP of their own next and refuse to go public and/or get bought.
I mean, I got upset like everyone else at the news that they wouldn't be making more BG, but the longer I think about it, the longer I feel like it's the healthier choice. Like you said, Hasbro might have pressured them to rush out the next game, instead of giving them the creative space to make that game live up to the expectations.
Probably a union hall. Maybe try the Wobblies. Definitely join me in propagandizing. But yeah organize in some way, you can probably find the hand of syndicalists somewhere in your local leftism scene, we’re notorious for being well organized as we’re where anarchism meets “ok but like we need a plan and some clear goals”.
Abso lutely. Microsoft and Google basically have a duopoly on corporate email and no one seems to care. I know this does seem relevant but trust me it is.
By shutting down a studio instead of selling it off or even letting it buy itself out, Microsoft ensures that no studio it has ever owned can become viable competition. Who cares about a diverse industry when you can keep all the IPs developed under your umbrella and shelve them for decades, instead of letting the studios that made them go on to work on their creative visions?
Article also mentions that it breaks the employees of those studios up so there is less chance of a competitor that makes another successful IP
Ironically if the developers band together and start another studio they would probably have Microsoft knocking on their door with an acquisition offer in a few years.
The trouble is the upfront capital though, but at the same time another publisher would surely bite at the thought of getting a talented studio's staff in one go?
There's absolutely noncompetes baked into that sale. Noncompetes might not be legal, or applicable, torards employees anymore, but they sure as shit are still legal and binding as a condition for a business's sale.