alt Hacker NewsThat business model is at odds with any creative enterprise. It's one thing to scale a business that has a successful product that needs very little improvement over time other than efficiency gains which can be handled by a management class whose only involvement needs to be ensuring the core model is maintained and not degraded while improving operational efficiency. It's a very different thing to having to constantly innovate and create new and better products especially when those products need their own artistic merit to stand on. If you're just making the next FIFA game you'll be fine but anything that requires a plot will go over like a lead balloon.
Yes, it's the industrialization of culture. The music and movie industry shows us exactly how that works out. Big major and big studio don't innovate, they sell you well known name, reinforce it with marketing, and buy up the latest trend from smaller studio. Nothing new under the sun. Company like EA or Activision will continue to buy smaller studio that managed to get a few decent game going, will milk the franchise while its popular, then get rid of it.