6 ms·

Sometimes, I really have to wonder about the exact machanisms involved, whereby one company sells out a thriving community to some other souless marketing goons

by why_tho 11y ago

Sometimes, I really have to wonder about the exact machanisms involved, whereby one company sells out a thriving community to some other souless marketing goons, and everyone on the outside of the deal knows that the magic is over, and the aftermath will end poorly, but the buyer still seems to believe that "touching things" isn't the exact sort of behavior that will destroy the thing they paid so much for, thus rendering it unprofitable, and unwittingly destroying even their own desired goals.

reustle 11y ago
I would love to see some of the numbers after a sale happens. At the end of the day, how much was the profit of the whole endeavor?
ExpiredLink 11y ago
It's called the greater fool theory.
HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
Your description sounds very similar to the situation I lived when the (very small) company I worked for was sold to a group of investors who knew nothing about the industry. Suffice to say that the experience over the next few years was so surreal that most people I told it to have difficulty believing anyone could so accurately and repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot without learning anything from the pain. So what main mechanism was involved? At the time I was young and cocky so I would have said "basic stupidity." With greater experience, I can see it was more nuanced than that, so let's call it management hubris.
fixermark 11y ago
The game industry is like this. There've been multiple occasions where a larger publisher bought a studio, only to find that the top-tier talent leave to found their own studio and the publisher is left with successful (but short-lived) licenses but no talent pool to build new golden eggs. Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang may be the exception that proves the rule; while Notch is no longer involved in Minecraft, the project itself has reached a critical mass where it very well might make as much on licensing and deals as it does on new users now (and with a healthy modding community on the PC version, it's an open sandbox that children can "grow into" as they learn more about how computers work). I think the way they'd kill that is to close off the avenues to modding the game; time will tell if Microsoft is that foolish, but I sincerely doubt they would be.
- axus 11y ago
  Microsoft hasn't made any changes to Minecraft yet, have they? The login and authentication servers are still on Amazon, right?
VLM 11y ago
Look at the survival rate for marriages. I'd strongly theorize that the inability to predict the outcome of a merger is not limited to arrogant businessmen and somewhat less strongly I propose that the general public don't seem to do much better or worse than businessmen. I wonder if there is any way to train people to design better mergers. It would seem that MBA schools and pre-marital counselors both are not terribly good at it. That means you could sell them a checkbox to help them out. Insert stereotypical "sounds like a really difficult job in other words the perfect crazy startup idea". Maybe gamified somehow, either entirely or some component? It might just be a lack of empathy, surely that can be trained? Or lack of critical analysis skills? Good luck with this startup idea. I'm sure that some liberal arts degrees have considerable research on this general topic, although I'd ignore the religious studies and b-school documentation for purely pragmatic reasons.

by why_tho 11y ago

reustle 11y ago

I would love to see some of the numbers after a sale happens. At the end of the day, how much was the profit of the whole endeavor?

ExpiredLink 11y ago

It's called the greater fool theory.

HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago

Your description sounds very similar to the situation I lived when the (very small) company I worked for was sold to a group of investors who knew nothing about the industry. Suffice to say that the experience over the next few years was so surreal that most people I told it to have difficulty believing anyone could so accurately and repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot without learning anything from the pain. So what main mechanism was involved? At the time I was young and cocky so I would have said "basic stupidity." With greater experience, I can see it was more nuanced than that, so let's call it management hubris.

fixermark 11y ago

The game industry is like this. There've been multiple occasions where a larger publisher bought a studio, only to find that the top-tier talent leave to found their own studio and the publisher is left with successful (but short-lived) licenses but no talent pool to build new golden eggs. Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang may be the exception that proves the rule; while Notch is no longer involved in Minecraft, the project itself has reached a critical mass where it very well might make as much on licensing and deals as it does on new users now (and with a healthy modding community on the PC version, it's an open sandbox that children can "grow into" as they learn more about how computers work). I think the way they'd kill that is to close off the avenues to modding the game; time will tell if Microsoft is that foolish, but I sincerely doubt they would be.

axus 11y ago
Microsoft hasn't made any changes to Minecraft yet, have they? The login and authentication servers are still on Amazon, right?

VLM 11y ago

Look at the survival rate for marriages. I'd strongly theorize that the inability to predict the outcome of a merger is not limited to arrogant businessmen and somewhat less strongly I propose that the general public don't seem to do much better or worse than businessmen. I wonder if there is any way to train people to design better mergers. It would seem that MBA schools and pre-marital counselors both are not terribly good at it. That means you could sell them a checkbox to help them out. Insert stereotypical "sounds like a really difficult job in other words the perfect crazy startup idea". Maybe gamified somehow, either entirely or some component? It might just be a lack of empathy, surely that can be trained? Or lack of critical analysis skills? Good luck with this startup idea. I'm sure that some liberal arts degrees have considerable research on this general topic, although I'd ignore the religious studies and b-school documentation for purely pragmatic reasons.