So, you feel as though my position merited personal insults? That's what you're saying there.
And if nobody wants to buy Platinum Games, of which I have no idea if anybody has ever seriously entertained it, that just goes to not creating enough value in their work. For whatever reason PG work tends to be very niche and not reach a broad audience. So either they should adopt a common Hollywood approach, do the mass appeal blockbusters to fund passion projects, or re-evaluate their position in the gaming industry.
You know, duckroll probably won't say it, but I absolutely will. Your position absolutely merits personal insults because your position is being a detached asshole. This is to say nothing of you as a person in any other aspect, way, shape, or form. Clearly you are not a complete asshole as we all know what complete assholes look like, where they're likely to flock, and their survival rate in an argument with a moderator. Were you a complete asshole, we'd all have a short chuckle at some snarky Kenshiro .jpg or humorous .gif. But for this one particular, narrow thread of conversation, you are an asshole. Allow me to elaborate.
You make the claim that if no one wanted to buy PG, then clearly that's because there's not enough value in their work. Yet many of their high profiles games are critical darlings among both the press and the public. Said games have traditionally sold well enough to keep their heads above water with some level of comfort, albeit with a few glaring exceptions. The industry as a whole, though, has gotten to the point where any low selling title is not just a stinging loss, but a potentially fatal blow, in part because the exact Hollywood blockbuster behavior you're suggesting. The public is too fickle and demands have risen too high for the industry standards to be sustainable. Even big names aren't immune, they simply have more resources to withstand the blow.
It is, however, a tremendously good environment for sharks to be out on the prowl for companies exactly like Platinum. PG knows they can't do the Hollywood blockbuster, they don't have the resources to soak up a failure if the whim of the public turns against it. So they temper their expectations and try to stake out a small corner of the market for themselves, which they have traditionally been quite successful at managing. But enough recent efforts have sold poorly enough that they could use an infusion of profit. Not necessarily a dying company, but ill. So when a big name like Microsoft comes along and offers the chance at getting exactly that AND sharing some of the financial burden, who wouldn't snap up the opportunity when the industry as a whole is generally scared shitless of extinction?
The problem is, Microsoft is a known shark. It has happened time and again to numerous other companies. I would say most of the time they act in 100% good faith, they're not mustache-twirling villains. But they have been proven to occasionally stab someone in the back and occasionally purchase the corpse afterwards. What option do you have, though? You either enter the contract and pray for the best, pass it up and pray someone else comes along, or pass and then lay off a quarter of your staff that trust you to put bread on their table.
This is where you're an asshole, because that last one can be just as deadly to an independent company as going bankrupt. These are not simply resources where one "re-evaluates their position in the gaming industry," these are human beings with human jobs being led by human directors. The strength of that bond is what independent companies leverage themselves on. Of course we all know the realities of any business, tough decisions have to be made now and then. But there's a reason why the comic of EA shooting Bioware in the back of the head against the backdrop of a pile of dead companies exists. When you inflate the size of something, it's much easier to distance yourself from cause and effect. And sure enough, in many instances when a company is taken over by a larger one, very little of what made the original company loved will remain. Just look at Rare for evidence there.
So while I can understand you having little sympathy for people who sign bad contracts, it's that very lack of sympathy that helps perpetuate monopolization and poor standards in an industry. And has been said before, the industry is having enough trouble as it is. But sure, maybe they should just start hunting for a buyer. Certainly the company will be the same under another company's control as it was before.
And if people are let go, why worry about that? After all, are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? And if they would rather die, then let them, and decrease the surplus population.
