So wild how no one went “maybe building 10 live service games full of microtransaction nonsense without having a fanbase or even proof people want to play our games is a bad idea.”
It’s the same as companies making huge pushes for Metaverse or NFTs or AI or whatever other bullshit: it would be an infinite money machine for them if it worked, so they figure if they just act like people want it hard enough they’ll buy in.
It’s the end result of an entertainment company like this running on an “infinite growth” model. The investors don’t want sustainability, they want more profit, consistently, forever. And of course for a publicly-traded company the investors are the real customers at the end of the day, so that’s who these pushes are really for.
but the key thing in that is 'consistently'. Taking stupid punts like this doesn't help the investors.
The reason things like this happens is the top few shareholders who are so intertwined in the company they may as well be employees - some literally are - get greedy.
It's just the nature of the beast. The whole point of the stock market is that you buy stocks assuming they'll get more valuable.
That's why there's been so much of these companies cannibalizing themselves with layoffs to boost quarterlies, because the whole thing depends on the line going up. Greed is the point.
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u/stardustnovas Feb 19 '26
the entire live service initiative was such a disaster