The same reason countless studios have destroyed successful IPs (like EA). Sure it’s profitable but it could be MORE profitable. Sales were up last year? Cool story, have sales improved over that this year though??
It’s not just shareholders, I mean that’s a huge part why public corporations endlessly seek growth. But, even private corporations are beholden to capitalism’s inherent growth imperative.
The only way to maintain solvency is to grow. Without growth you can’t save, and if you can’t save, you can’t accumulate investment capital. Which basically means your corporation is stuck in stagnation and is being eaten alive by interest rates.
If you aren’t investing back into your company as much as your competitors then they will eventually push you out of the market. It’s called the Growth imperative .
Putting back into your company is fine. It’s the endless profiteering that sucks, and that ultimately reduces customer experience. Steam keeps it’s niche specifically by producing a great customer experience, and getting out of the way.
Steam is also putting back into their company. But there’s no need for enshittification. That’s a publicly-traded-company, tragedy-of-the-commons thing.
Because MBA- and CEO-brains say that raking in money hand over fist doesn’t matter unless you can rake in consistently more and more money hand over fist. What normal people see as stable profits, they see as underperforming versus the bigger profits they see only in their head.
But if we add a subscription required to access already bought game we would surely make more money this quarter. Or how about charging for online play.
In the end, the people who make these sorts of decisions will often bail out with their quarterly bonuses before the poo hits the fan. It’s everyone else who has to deal with the fallout.
Honestly, why ruin something already raking in money hand over fist? Valve is profitable, sustainable, and all around well executed.
Messing with it would cut profits!
The same reason countless studios have destroyed successful IPs (like EA). Sure it’s profitable but it could be MORE profitable. Sales were up last year? Cool story, have sales improved over that this year though??
It’s not just shareholders, I mean that’s a huge part why public corporations endlessly seek growth. But, even private corporations are beholden to capitalism’s inherent growth imperative.
The only way to maintain solvency is to grow. Without growth you can’t save, and if you can’t save, you can’t accumulate investment capital. Which basically means your corporation is stuck in stagnation and is being eaten alive by interest rates.
What? Why? If I’m making a million dollars profit a year, why can’t I just put it in a bank account or ETFs or whatever every year?
If you aren’t investing back into your company as much as your competitors then they will eventually push you out of the market. It’s called the Growth imperative .
Putting back into your company is fine. It’s the endless profiteering that sucks, and that ultimately reduces customer experience. Steam keeps it’s niche specifically by producing a great customer experience, and getting out of the way.
Steam is also putting back into their company. But there’s no need for enshittification. That’s a publicly-traded-company, tragedy-of-the-commons thing.
Because MBA- and CEO-brains say that raking in money hand over fist doesn’t matter unless you can rake in consistently more and more money hand over fist. What normal people see as stable profits, they see as underperforming versus the bigger profits they see only in their head.
Greed and incompetence
But if we add a subscription required to access already bought game we would surely make more money this quarter. Or how about charging for online play.
In the end, the people who make these sorts of decisions will often bail out with their quarterly bonuses before the poo hits the fan. It’s everyone else who has to deal with the fallout.
Because enshitifying their service would earn them short term profits, which is the only thing corps/shareholders care about.
You clearly haven’t heard of private equity
If you’ve read/watched ready player one, that’s what likely to happen if the sixers won.