[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.