Gaming

Ironically if the developers band together and start another studio they would probably have Microsoft knocking on their door with an acquisition offer in a few years.

Microsoft getting back to the business strategy that made them successful

I looked everywhere in the box, but didn't find that color.

Abso lutely. Microsoft and Google basically have a duopoly on corporate email and no one seems to care. I know this does seem relevant but trust me it is.

That's what I was thinking the whole time. I mean, it's not that far of a guess.

Something tells me that here in the United States of Greed, such a thing is ‘un-possible’, legally speaking.

It's not only possible it happens reasonably often. So often in fact that the "poison pill" idiom was created by companies who were doing just that.

Here's a Harvard Law paper on it.

There are plenty of small indie studios that won't sell out, we just don't know who they are.

I believe that company name is Valve.

There are two ways to solve for this: private ownership by a dedicated individual, and worker cooperative ownership with a strong culture.

I mean, Larian is pretty much that. Instead of just doing Baldur's Gate 4 although Hasbro fired all their contact people and probably would have urged Larian to rush a sequel, they are instead during an IP of their own next and refuse to go public and/or get bought.

I've been doing some market analysis on the viability of indie projects. My brother and I are starting to develop a game after he's finished up his computer science degree (Im a graphics major BTW). Anyway I slice it, the only way to remain profitable would be to have a small team as possible.

I have no idea why a lot of these companies think that growth is actually going to be better for them in the indie space.

My older liberal banker brother asked me, small business owning tradesman, why I don't just go start some small community in Montana and live without the dollar, yada yada.

I laughed, he said he's serious, I said "yea, the bankers that own the feds are serious too, and they use that to control what kind of society we decide for ourselves. We don't have the freedom to choose. We have the freedom to choose but only from these two choices. We won't even allow Cuba to do that shit, still today, 60years under embargo. And they're their own country! The bankers would erase me in a heartbeat".

Fallout, Elder Scrolls, or Both?

From the article:

By shutting down a studio instead of selling it off or even letting it buy itself out, Microsoft ensures that no studio it has ever owned can become viable competition.

They benefit by killing off art and culture that could replace or take attention away from the art and culture they already control and profit from. They don't need to profit from it directly.

Corpo drones will never allow such things. Disney in particular will fight back like a rabid mouse.