Everyone knows the tale of Brand X getting bought out by some faceless global conglomerate and going to shit, but does the opposite ever happen?
YouTube got better before it got to whatever it is now
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Youtube only existed for less than 2 years as an independent start up. There’s no way to know what it could become as an independent tech company.
None that I can think of.
And honestly Brand X is rarely the good guy in this situation being fucked over by the big bad corporations.
It is usually the creator/owner is looking for their payday. They may have created a great product but these days that is usually to make them attractive to be bought out.
In tech, for the last few decades, the goal of so many startups is not to be the next Apple/Google/Facebook but to create something that Apple/Google/Facebook want to buy.
In tech, for the last few decades, the goal of so many startups is not to be the next Apple/Google/Facebook but to create something that Apple/Google/Facebook want to buy.
Yeah unfortunately not taking a buy out often means one of the Big Five making their own version of whatever you’re doing / buying out your competitor, and then bullying you out of the market. A bleak possibility for start ups
This was going to be my first answer. I had a boycott of ATI due to horrible driver support on Linux.
Is it? AMD’s first idea was to put a GPU in the same package as the CPU, and then you buy a discreet GPU and crossfire the two together. That didn’t work and it was quickly abandoned.
Then AMD releases Faildozer around the same time Intel gets their shit in order with Core. The company gets incredibly cash strapped and very nearly falls apart. The CPU side eventually got it together, but the GPU side seems to be crawling out from that nightmare only recently.
Edit: it also killed their relationship with Nvidia. Back then on AMD systems, the memory controller was on the north bridge chipset, which meant your choice of motherboard could have a dramatic effect on performance. The nForce chipset line was the best one. Buying ATI meant nothing like that would happen again.
I was kinda hoping Microsoft would improve Activision.
Its still too soon, isnt it? Like regulators still havent OKd it and stuff yet.
I’m generally pro-Xbox but don’t consider myself a fanboy. I think the acquisition will be good for both brands.
I do worry about what they’ll do with the Blizzard IPs, but at this point I’m worried about Blizzard regardless.
Blizzard destroyed warcraft 3, quite possibly the greatest game ever made, with their “reforged” bullshit and I can never forgive them for that. I swore them off afterward. I am ashamed to say that I caved and bought Diablo 4 and was reminded what a shit company they are because they somehow managed to suck all the fun out of that too.
Well they certainly can’t turn it into the worst gaming company because EA still exists.
I think Activision-Blizzard passed EA in badness years ago. Maybe Square Enix did too.
Like, when’s the last time there was an EA controversy beyond “game’s bad?” And even then I’ve only really heard sports games and Battlefield are bad.
I dunno, I still think EA has them beat on greed with microtransactions. The new launcher is absolutely littered with Battlefield 4 shortcut packs at full price (lol) and Sims stuff, hell I don’t even play The Sims. You’re not wrong about ActiBlizz though, I am pretty pissed at them for shutting down Overwatch and I don’t like OW2 so I don’t play it. But I’ve always felt like EA was trying to nickle and dime everyone to death more than any other company. And I absolutely hate what they’ve done with Respawn. But yeah, you make a good argument. They both suck.
Only if Bobby Kotick will be replaced by a real game developer and not a suit.
In the development world, Microsoft is actually doing some legitimately good work since the end of the Balmer years. Back then open source was a cancer that needed to be eliminated. Now they have VSCode (maybe the most popular IDE at the moment), develop and release Typescript under an open license, and own github (still a bit of a mixed bag but they’re trying).
There was a social media site called MySpace in the early 2000s that got bought out and my friend Tom made out great and is now a successful photographer. The website went to shit, but my first online friend is living his best life.
MySpace actually just reverted back to it’s intended purpose which is for bands to post their stuff.
Both halves of that comment are incorrect. It wasn’t originally for posting music, it was an improvement of the concept of social networking that started as an alternative to Friendster.
The music stuff didn’t come until years later, and they never had anything you could consider a success in that department, especially after they deleted every song artists had previously posted to the site.
Also, just going in the website right now, that’s not the bands posting those articles. That’s not even people posting news on MySpace. It is literally just aggregating music news from other websites.
