Isn’t that a prerequisite for enshitification? Publicly-traded companies are required (by law, I think) to maximize profits for their shareholders, even if that means utterly ruining their original product (Reddit, Boeing, etc.), yes? What do you think?
I don’t think that it’s a prerequisite but it’s definitely a catalyst.
Another catalyst is one company buying another. I cannot think of one example where the acquired company’s product/services got better after a M and A. OTOH, I can think of many examples of it getting worse. Confirmation bias? Absolutely. But still makes you go “hmm…”
I feel like there have been some positive outcomes of mergers and acquisitions but I am having trouble thinking of them. What comes to my mind is Meta acquiring Oculus, Activision merging with Blizzard, and Microsoft acquiring Minecraft. All of those have led to a shitty Russian nesting doll of launchers and DRM.
The positives might be harder to note though. There must have been a couple times where some kind of acquisition has brought a series into the mainstream.
I know a lot of people prefer the classic Fallout games but I do wonder how people would be aware of the series if it weren’t for Bethesda buying the right to Fallout for example.
That’s true, and also why I added that last part about it being confirmation bias on my part. Definitely not saying there aren’t good examples, but like you said, I’m also having a hard time coming up with any.
Has Valve ever bought any other company? lol They’re one of the few I could see actually making the child company better xD
I’m not sure. Portal and Team Fortress both have really interesting back stories that I think have a bit to do with Valve acquisitions
Interesting. I’ve never played TF but Portal is one of my all-time favorites (I’m not much of a gamer lol). Will try to look into that when I have time because it’s definitely interesting if true (and can be my token good example lol).
You might be interested in Portal on the N64 while you’re at it.
I’d check out Narbacular Drop. Pretty sure that’s the game that I’m talking about that became Portal, in a way, later.
There was a good YouTube video about it a while ago but I think it had a clickbait title that makes it hard to find.
I’ve followed that for a while :) Saw it on Hack a Day early in its development and thought it was one of the coolest ports I’ve ever seen. Sadly, I think he got D&D’d. Best I recall, I think it was unlicensed use of the N64 SDK or something like that.