[vvanders]

Yeah, as an ex-gamedev as well there's a large divide between the values a devshop tends to hold and the publisher that finances your project. I've yet to see a studio acqui-hire that doesn't eventually head south as the publishing culture seeps into the previously independent company.

[SeanBoocock]

You say that as if that is always a top down transformation, and not the result of entrepreneurial founders losing motivation or leaving after a lockup period. Regardless of cultural differences or how the transition is handled, the fact that a studio is no longer an independent entity affects how you view your work and how much value you can extract from a commercial success.

There are some high profile examples of studio acquisitions I’ve had insight into where the publisher has been blamed for perceived changes in a studio’s output post-acquisition. The reality on the ground was almost the inverse: the publisher gave the acquired studio a great amount of autonomy and runway, even more than than internal studios, and the acquired studio struggled in an environment where they had relatively more freedom than they did pre-acquisition. It let bad habits fester and poor managers calcify in roles they never could have survived in during scrappier times.

[vvanders]

Transitions are hard, and I'm sure there's definitely that failure case.

However if you look at EA and the acquire/in-house cycle they go through every 4-5 years, there's no way you can hope to be stable under those circumstances. Ditto Microsoft and the 2-3 cycles they went through with similar disasters.

Fundamentally the two types of companies have different goals which drive their culture. Publishers exist to make money, pure and simple. They diversify risk by supporting multiple developers but at the end of the day they want to see growth and cash. A developer on the other hand may be happy staying mostly cash-neutral as long as it keeps them afloat to keep creating the art/experience that drives them.

I'd argue that those two cultures are at distinct odds(based on what I saw play out when I was in the industry) and trying to merge them leads to disaster.