Large game companies make a significant percentage of their revenue from the so-called "whales", which tend to be lonely people with an addiction control proble

Large game companies make a significant percentage of their revenue from the so-called "whales", which tend to be lonely people with an addiction control problem. Most developers want to make games like they would want to play them. That means no grinding, no pay to win, no taking advantage of your players. But if you run your studio that way, you're way less profitable than the competition which is managed by greedy sharks and fully "monetizes" (=exploits) anyone who's willing to touch microtransactions. For stock market companies, having competitive numbers is a big deal or else you'll pay through the nose for borrowing the $200 mio that a AAA game will cost. In short, "the market" makes sure that game companies become exploitative, and true believers leave to fund their own indie studio. But that means I disagree with you that senior management adds no value. They do precisely what they were hired for, which is to make sure the studio has a good stock price and, hence, enough money to finance future games. It's just that most developers hate em, and for good reason.