[marvin]

This is not true. Minecraft is the best example; it had an insane growth rate both in percent and absolute numbers, exactly what PG is talking about. The other games you mention are also good examples of starups in high-growth terms. And when talking about markets, most people who enjoy Diablo, Baldur's Gate and Minecraft _don't_ enjoy free-to-play games, since these games have no element of art or story to them.

And PG even explicitly said that not all companies should be startups. You are reading things into this essay that aren't there.

[ozataman]

Somehow titling Minecraft, Diablo, BG as "Startup"s or "Startup-like" things feels wrong to me.

Minecraft was one guy (probably) enjoying himself while putting together something creative. It then exploded. Did he really target 10% growth per week?

Diablo, BG, etc. were all calculated bets by people with lots of experience in the industry. They weren't building a business model, a new organization, etc. They were doing "projects" they felt would promise high returns. That's it.

[shimon]

Minecraft maybe didn't set out to be a startup, but it achieved all the growth goals of one, and it's certainly fair to call it one now, isn't it?

Games like Diablo and BG are actually run in a fashion closer to movies than startups. A game publisher finances games that it expects will succeed. The publisher's competitive advantage comes largely from brand equity and high capital cost of creating a new game. Thanks to brand equity, they are primarily expanding or upselling into a market where they already have a lot of reach. Of course, there is some risk of failure in each project, but it's closer to that of making a blockbuster sequel than that of solving a novel problem with technology.