5 ms·

> The lifetime of a company has been getting shorter and shorter for centuries. Really? Because Apple was founded in 1976 and I'm guessing they aren't going an

by ebbv 12y ago

> The lifetime of a company has been getting shorter and shorter for centuries. Really? Because Apple was founded in 1976 and I'm guessing they aren't going anywhere. Google was founded in 1998 and I don't think they're going anywhere. Your assertion is really flimsy, and I think based on seeing a large number of mismanaged companies that flare up and die quickly and then concluding this is normal or even unavoidable. While it may be common, that doesn't mean it's what has to happen. Rovio took their success and drove it into the ground. They absolutely saturated the market, coming out with new Angry Birds games and tie ins almost constantly and flooding store shelves with very low quality (and in my area, often dingy) plush animals, further lowering public perception of their brand. I'd argue that if Rovio had been more judicious with their successful IP, that public interest in it wouldn't have disappeared so completely. You seem to be arguing that the fade was unavoidable since Angry Birds is just a game where you launch birds at pigs with a sling shot. But that doesn't mean the follow up games needed to be. Super Mario Bros was just a game where a guy jumps on things. Now I'm not really saying that Angry Birds was necessarily an IP with as much legs as Mario, but I think they burned it down. Rovio chose the short term, maximum immediate profit path, and now we're seeing the result of that. Zynga did the same thing. When you go all in immediately, and don't think about what is best for your long term, you burn out public interest in whatever you have to offer. When you don't take the time to make what you're putting out compelling, people will start to conclude everything you have to offer is just going to be more of the same. And they'll be sick of it. This is not the only path available, and asserting that it is just the way things are now is ridiculous.

lamuerteflaca 12y ago
I'm a game developer. I'm not sure what I would do if I were to have a huge success. You speak as if it was obvious what they were supposed to have done. I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I would really like to know what you think Rovio should have done. Hopefully with your advise I'll know what to do if I ever have such a huge success.
- ebbv 12y ago
  > I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I would really like to know what you think Rovio should have done. Hopefully with your advise I'll know what to do if I ever have such a huge success. Yes you are trying to be a smart ass. But you're wielding sarcasm like a 5 year old with a chainsaw. I already outlined what they should have done; not flood the market with sub-standard crap until everyone's sick of them. Pretty obvious if you're not blinded by greed.
  - hnnewguy 12y ago
    >I already outlined what they should have done And what sort of authority are you? How many multi-hundred-million-dollar companies have you run that you make it sound so easy and obvious?
    - ebbv 12y ago
      You realize that's the weakest argument in the world? "Only CEOs of hundred million dollar companies are allowed to weigh in." I'm not forcing you to read my opinion, if you don't like it, move on.
  - lamuerteflaca 12y ago
    It wasn't sarcasm. I've been working on a game for four years already and I'm just thinking on what if's.
- jfoutz 12y ago
  What a problem to have, right? I think it boils down to, they're a company that is very good at making games. From a casual outside observer's point of view, they seemed to think they could jump straight into being very good at animation and merchandising. They made, what, 30 or 40 games before angry birds was a hit? They didn't seem to have the same level of commitment to 30 or 40 iterations of animation, or merchandising. It's fine to expand into new markets, companies do it all the time. You probably don't want to bet the farm on something you're not very very good at though, unless it's threatening your survival. Western union moving from the telegraph to money transfer is a pretty iconic example. Compare to Mojang (survivor bias warning...) they're still pretty small. I haven't played it, but Scrolls is supposed to be really fun. Haven't heard anything bad about Cobalt either. I was very excited for x10k or whatever the space programming game was. They did a ton of merchandising, but they didn't do it in house (as far as i can tell). They took the check from lego and let the big toy maker do their thing. Do what you think is best, but even if there's some non-game thing that makes sense, ask yourself if you really want to go head to head with Hasbro or Pixar. Really understand what you're getting yourself into.
deleted 12y ago
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herge 12y ago
> This is not the only path available, and asserting that it is just the way things are now is ridiculous. Really? What other paths are available for game companies? Any examples?
- Goronmon 12y ago
  Really? What other paths are available for game companies? Any examples? Take Nintendo and Mario/Zelda/Metroid franchises. You spend years developing quality titles that you rotate through to avoid saturating the market. Probably the easiest way to do that is to actually develop more than a single franchise, but still, throwing as many slightly modified versions of your original game at app stores as fast as possible is definitely not the way to build a long term business.
  - ShannonSofield 12y ago
    Funny you bring up Nintendo, they were founded on September 23, 1889, more than a CENTURY ago.
- avsaro 12y ago
  What Nintendo did for past 30 years is a good example. Create more than 1 IP and do not use them as ATMs.
- ebbv 12y ago
  Look at Nintendo or Blizzard or Capcom or any other gaming company that hasn't simply flared up and burned out like some of the recent mobile developers who didn't know how to handle their success. Don't just take your one IP and drive it into the ground like Rovio did with Angry Birds. Diversify. But do so thoughtfully. If you release a bunch of crap, that will dilute your brand as well. It's not rocket surgery.
- jkaunisv1 12y ago
  Blizzard (WoW, SC, Diablo), Microsoft (Halo), Nintendo (Mario), Pocketwatch Games (Monaco), the makers of Towerfall, DoubleFine. That's just off the top of my head as somebody who isn't very current with the game scene. I've included a mix of big companies, medium ones and smaller indie ones. There are other paths.
josefresco 12y ago
"Because Apple was founded in 1976 and I'm guessing they aren't going anywhere." Bad example, as Apple almost died back in the 90's. Also, using a company founded in 1998 (16 years old) as a counter example to the parent argument who's scope was "centuries" is not ideal.
- bashinator 12y ago
  Good point - Apple as we know it was essentially re-founded in 1997 when SJ took over. Wasn't there an almost immediate and total overhaul of their product lines and direction?
- ebbv 12y ago
  > Bad example, as Apple almost died back in the 90's. They did almost die, but that's why it's a great example. Why did they almost die? Because they started shitting out bad products. Why did they turn around? Because they re-evalutaed and looked at the products they were offering and reduced the number of them in order to focus more on those few products. > Also, using a company founded in 1998 (16 years old) as a counter example to the parent argument who's scope was "centuries" is not ideal. The scope of "centuries" is a joke. He didn't cite any examples, and "business" in the 1400's isn't really relevant or meaningful in 2014. My examples were to illustrate how absurd his "centuries" comment was by pointing that two of today's largest companies are very young (I haven't done a count but I'd be surprised if any/many of the top 100 companies were much more than one century old.)
  - hnnewguy 12y ago
    >and "business" in the 1400's isn't really relevant or meaningful in 2014 So I guess you'll be saying the same thing about Google and Apple in a few hundred years, rendering your argument moot? "Not going anywhere" means still here.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  It's also selection bias. We tend to remember companies more if their names are still in use. Borland was founded in 1983. By 2008, the only value left in it was its trademarks. So those were purchased, and now that company "still exists", in the sense that a few of its old names are being used to conduct business in the same industry. It was killed by gross mismanagement at the executive level. Eastman Kodak was founded in 1888 and practically invented consumer-grade photography with the Brownie. But by 2012, the only thing left of value was its patents and trademarks. It even built a digital camera as early as 1975, which makes it look a lot like it was killed by being run over by its own car. But the trademark is still in use. Beatrice Foods, founded in 1894, died in 1984. RCA was founded in 1919, and died in 1986. Compaq: 1982-2002. TWA: 1930-2001. General Foods: 1895-1990. MCI: 1983-2006. Pan Am: 1927-1991. Montgomery Ward: 1872-2001. American Motors: 1954-1983. Woolworth's: 1879-1997. Tower Records. Polaroid. Zenith. Circuit City. Borders. Blockbuster Video. A business will tend to operate under the name of the oldest trademark that it can pass off with a straight face. That doesn't make it the same company. It may be that the new business entity picked up the lovely old facade out of the bargain bin and just slipped it on like a mask. Make no mistake. Rapidly changing technology has made the international business environment brutal for companies of any age. Protected niches are being pried open and picked clean by the suits who happened to bankroll the lucky garage full of nerds. The fraction of workers that can count on stable, decades-long employment is dropping like a parachute in a vacuum chamber (or like a stone, if you prefer). And those are the people that cause their companies to retain their essential culture and character. Companies aren't just dying faster. The ones that survive are forced to change so rapidly that actual death might be a less shocking development. It isn't really surprising that Roxio blazed out after its one-hit wonder. What is surprising is that it took so long for them to settle back down to the baseline.
sgnelson 12y ago
Talk about using anecdotal evidence and outliers to prove a point. Most studies, which don't focus on mega-corps like Apple and Google, but rather look at small, medium, and large businesses do show evidence of companies having a short lifespan, much like the product cycle itself. I apologize for not citing sources, but the research is out there, and I don't have time at the moment to find them.
- ebbv 12y ago
  > Talk about using anecdotal evidence and outliers to prove a point. > I apologize for not citing sources, but the research is out there, You have got to be kidding me, dude.
hnnewguy 12y ago
>Because Apple was founded in 1976 and I'm guessing they aren't going anywhere. Google was founded in 1998 and I don't think they're going anywhere. I'd bet everything I have that you'll be wrong. Look at any list of "top companies" over decades or centuries, and you'll see that, almost exclusively, they eventually disappear, via bad business, takeovers, whatever. There are so many massive, "successful" companies that you've probably never heard of because they no longer exist. That said, not sure why people are ragging on Rovio so badly. These guys absolutely crushed it.
patrickg_zill 12y ago
Yes, Apple is a survivor from 1976. How many other computer companies from that era, are still around? Victor computers? Osborne? IMSAI? Tandy/Radioshack computers? Cromemco? Symbolics LISP machines?

by ebbv 12y ago

lamuerteflaca 12y ago

I'm a game developer. I'm not sure what I would do if I were to have a huge success. You speak as if it was obvious what they were supposed to have done. I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I would really like to know what you think Rovio should have done. Hopefully with your advise I'll know what to do if I ever have such a huge success.

ebbv 12y ago
> I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I would really like to know what you think Rovio should have done. Hopefully with your advise I'll know what to do if I ever have such a huge success. Yes you are trying to be a smart ass. But you're wielding sarcasm like a 5 year old with a chainsaw. I already outlined what they should have done; not flood the market with sub-standard crap until everyone's sick of them. Pretty obvious if you're not blinded by greed.
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >I already outlined what they should have done And what sort of authority are you? How many multi-hundred-million-dollar companies have you run that you make it sound so easy and obvious?
  - ebbv 12y ago
    You realize that's the weakest argument in the world? "Only CEOs of hundred million dollar companies are allowed to weigh in." I'm not forcing you to read my opinion, if you don't like it, move on.
- lamuerteflaca 12y ago
  It wasn't sarcasm. I've been working on a game for four years already and I'm just thinking on what if's.
jfoutz 12y ago
What a problem to have, right? I think it boils down to, they're a company that is very good at making games. From a casual outside observer's point of view, they seemed to think they could jump straight into being very good at animation and merchandising. They made, what, 30 or 40 games before angry birds was a hit? They didn't seem to have the same level of commitment to 30 or 40 iterations of animation, or merchandising. It's fine to expand into new markets, companies do it all the time. You probably don't want to bet the farm on something you're not very very good at though, unless it's threatening your survival. Western union moving from the telegraph to money transfer is a pretty iconic example. Compare to Mojang (survivor bias warning...) they're still pretty small. I haven't played it, but Scrolls is supposed to be really fun. Haven't heard anything bad about Cobalt either. I was very excited for x10k or whatever the space programming game was. They did a ton of merchandising, but they didn't do it in house (as far as i can tell). They took the check from lego and let the big toy maker do their thing. Do what you think is best, but even if there's some non-game thing that makes sense, ask yourself if you really want to go head to head with Hasbro or Pixar. Really understand what you're getting yourself into.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

herge 12y ago

> This is not the only path available, and asserting that it is just the way things are now is ridiculous. Really? What other paths are available for game companies? Any examples?

Goronmon 12y ago
Really? What other paths are available for game companies? Any examples? Take Nintendo and Mario/Zelda/Metroid franchises. You spend years developing quality titles that you rotate through to avoid saturating the market. Probably the easiest way to do that is to actually develop more than a single franchise, but still, throwing as many slightly modified versions of your original game at app stores as fast as possible is definitely not the way to build a long term business.
- ShannonSofield 12y ago
  Funny you bring up Nintendo, they were founded on September 23, 1889, more than a CENTURY ago.
avsaro 12y ago
What Nintendo did for past 30 years is a good example. Create more than 1 IP and do not use them as ATMs.
ebbv 12y ago
Look at Nintendo or Blizzard or Capcom or any other gaming company that hasn't simply flared up and burned out like some of the recent mobile developers who didn't know how to handle their success. Don't just take your one IP and drive it into the ground like Rovio did with Angry Birds. Diversify. But do so thoughtfully. If you release a bunch of crap, that will dilute your brand as well. It's not rocket surgery.
jkaunisv1 12y ago
Blizzard (WoW, SC, Diablo), Microsoft (Halo), Nintendo (Mario), Pocketwatch Games (Monaco), the makers of Towerfall, DoubleFine. That's just off the top of my head as somebody who isn't very current with the game scene. I've included a mix of big companies, medium ones and smaller indie ones. There are other paths.

josefresco 12y ago

"Because Apple was founded in 1976 and I'm guessing they aren't going anywhere." Bad example, as Apple almost died back in the 90's. Also, using a company founded in 1998 (16 years old) as a counter example to the parent argument who's scope was "centuries" is not ideal.

bashinator 12y ago
Good point - Apple as we know it was essentially re-founded in 1997 when SJ took over. Wasn't there an almost immediate and total overhaul of their product lines and direction?
ebbv 12y ago
> Bad example, as Apple almost died back in the 90's. They did almost die, but that's why it's a great example. Why did they almost die? Because they started shitting out bad products. Why did they turn around? Because they re-evalutaed and looked at the products they were offering and reduced the number of them in order to focus more on those few products. > Also, using a company founded in 1998 (16 years old) as a counter example to the parent argument who's scope was "centuries" is not ideal. The scope of "centuries" is a joke. He didn't cite any examples, and "business" in the 1400's isn't really relevant or meaningful in 2014. My examples were to illustrate how absurd his "centuries" comment was by pointing that two of today's largest companies are very young (I haven't done a count but I'd be surprised if any/many of the top 100 companies were much more than one century old.)
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >and "business" in the 1400's isn't really relevant or meaningful in 2014 So I guess you'll be saying the same thing about Google and Apple in a few hundred years, rendering your argument moot? "Not going anywhere" means still here.
logfromblammo 12y ago
It's also selection bias. We tend to remember companies more if their names are still in use. Borland was founded in 1983. By 2008, the only value left in it was its trademarks. So those were purchased, and now that company "still exists", in the sense that a few of its old names are being used to conduct business in the same industry. It was killed by gross mismanagement at the executive level. Eastman Kodak was founded in 1888 and practically invented consumer-grade photography with the Brownie. But by 2012, the only thing left of value was its patents and trademarks. It even built a digital camera as early as 1975, which makes it look a lot like it was killed by being run over by its own car. But the trademark is still in use. Beatrice Foods, founded in 1894, died in 1984. RCA was founded in 1919, and died in 1986. Compaq: 1982-2002. TWA: 1930-2001. General Foods: 1895-1990. MCI: 1983-2006. Pan Am: 1927-1991. Montgomery Ward: 1872-2001. American Motors: 1954-1983. Woolworth's: 1879-1997. Tower Records. Polaroid. Zenith. Circuit City. Borders. Blockbuster Video. A business will tend to operate under the name of the oldest trademark that it can pass off with a straight face. That doesn't make it the same company. It may be that the new business entity picked up the lovely old facade out of the bargain bin and just slipped it on like a mask. Make no mistake. Rapidly changing technology has made the international business environment brutal for companies of any age. Protected niches are being pried open and picked clean by the suits who happened to bankroll the lucky garage full of nerds. The fraction of workers that can count on stable, decades-long employment is dropping like a parachute in a vacuum chamber (or like a stone, if you prefer). And those are the people that cause their companies to retain their essential culture and character. Companies aren't just dying faster. The ones that survive are forced to change so rapidly that actual death might be a less shocking development. It isn't really surprising that Roxio blazed out after its one-hit wonder. What is surprising is that it took so long for them to settle back down to the baseline.

sgnelson 12y ago

Talk about using anecdotal evidence and outliers to prove a point. Most studies, which don't focus on mega-corps like Apple and Google, but rather look at small, medium, and large businesses do show evidence of companies having a short lifespan, much like the product cycle itself. I apologize for not citing sources, but the research is out there, and I don't have time at the moment to find them.

ebbv 12y ago
> Talk about using anecdotal evidence and outliers to prove a point. > I apologize for not citing sources, but the research is out there, You have got to be kidding me, dude.

hnnewguy 12y ago

>Because Apple was founded in 1976 and I'm guessing they aren't going anywhere. Google was founded in 1998 and I don't think they're going anywhere. I'd bet everything I have that you'll be wrong. Look at any list of "top companies" over decades or centuries, and you'll see that, almost exclusively, they eventually disappear, via bad business, takeovers, whatever. There are so many massive, "successful" companies that you've probably never heard of because they no longer exist. That said, not sure why people are ragging on Rovio so badly. These guys absolutely crushed it.

patrickg_zill 12y ago

Yes, Apple is a survivor from 1976. How many other computer companies from that era, are still around? Victor computers? Osborne? IMSAI? Tandy/Radioshack computers? Cromemco? Symbolics LISP machines?