[tormeh]

In the traditional, server-independent, sense? Hard to serve advertisements that way.

There's always a lot of new game studios, but I don't think they count. There's no end-game in games development, no lock-in, no network-effects, no industry-standard-status. A single bad game can ruin the studio.

[warfangle]

The only studios that have lock in and network effects are those that launch successful MMOs. And the only independent company running a successful MMO at the moment is, as far as I know, CCP Games. Blizzard doesn't really count - they haven't been an independent company since 1994.

[troymc]

Startup game studios are startups. Many game studios do get acquired or IPO, classic startup end-games. Game studios also satisfy your other criteria, but since when are those criteria for calling a company a startup?

For example, a single bad product/service can kill any startup, not just a game studio.

[tormeh]

Of course, but generally a startup grows to a certain size and becomes a safe corporation. A game studio is like a startup that can't succeed, only survive. The games industry is pretty unique in the software world in that there's no/little help in old successes. It's got more in common with consulting than it does with Google/Dropbox/Facebook.

[troymc]

Madden NFL is a counterexample. That game came out in 1988. Not many software companies can say they've been working on the same software series since 1988. Will Dropbox still be relevant in 2035?

Madden NFL is not the only example of a "safe", long-running game series (franchise). Wikipedia has a list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-running_video_...