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

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.