But it’s the want of ‘all the money’ instead of ‘some of the money’ that drove some of those companies to fly past reason to follow trends they should not have instead of merely trying to play to their strengths and make good games based on those strengths. And where are they now? Dead or dying or should be dying/dead.

Uhm… why do you think these trends exist? For amusement’s sake? And how did anything in your response above counter what I said about money ruining things? You’ve given evidence for the point, not against. I wouldn’t call EA, Activision, and Ubisoft ‘dying/dead’, either. They’re fabulously successful, in case you have somehow missed that tiny fact.

These approaches are purely an effort to increase profit, driven by expectations (after years of industry growth) that profit margins and growth must increase at an accelerating rate, without threshhold. In fact, the business plan depends upon this sort of return. It’s an unreasonable expectation in anything like the long run, which should be obvious to anyone who uses their brain.

It’s also worth noting that these innovations came (and continue to come) not from the poorest companies which are trying to find ways to stay afloat, but from the largest companies which are finding ways to pad out their margins. If you think more than one step ahead, these things are patently obvious.

Most development studios operate pretty well (what we might more specifically refer to as ‘consumer equity’) when they are small and their operating capital is limited. As their size increases, so too does the capital risk, and the liklihood that the company will operate publicly (with shareholders) goes up. With increased risk or shareholders, companies find ways to mitigate capital risk, which they do by increasing profit margin on the item. So, even if fewer copies sell, the improved income makes up for it. In addition, shareholders drive expectations like those mentioned above: increasing rates of growth, increasing rates of profit. These are short-term goals, not long-term, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with gamer equity (hence why the bar of acceptibility is constantly being pushed).

It’s not hard to see how this works.

But it’s the want of ‘all the money’ instead of ‘some of the money’ that drove some of those companies to fly past reason to follow trends they should not have instead of merely trying to play to their strengths and make good games based on those strengths. And where are they now? Dead or dying or should be dying/dead.