NoA's CEO, Jack Bowser, was an EA vicepresident. Iwata, a game programmer, was succeeded by a banker and then an economist.
All the decisions they make nowdays, including adding more globohomo to their games, can be explained by this
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I don't understand why we can't ever have companies that just want to see number be green. Why must number go up if the number is already green?
Legally, thanks to Dodge v. Ford, they must act in the interest of the shareholders. People who have usually little interest in the company as it exists or what it makes, only that their "investment" in it grows. If they do not work to make line keep going up, they can be ousted and replaced incredibly easily.
While that's only American law, globalization and international companies mean they often are forced to adhere to things like that in their biggest markets and operate accordingly.
They don't have to make line go up if they pay out dividends.
S corporations even have restrictions on making line go up, and must pay out in most circumstances.
Besides double taxation, dividends are boring and a sign the company peaked and can no longer innovate.
Meanwhile, growth companies are sexy and people get dopamine hits watching line go up, even if that growth resembles cancer than anything sustainable. Plus it gives the C-suite opportunities to pad their stock options before they pull the ripcords to their golden parachutes.
Don't forget mission creep. You can't just excel in your market, you need to excel in every market. If you make great high end sports cars it becomes lets all make mid level sports cars then low level. Sure, you're still in the same game but people at the high end get resentful and move on. Then it becomes "OH. Let's make family cars now!" And now your sports car development suffers.
Dodge v. Ford is not a Supreme Court decision.
Dodge v. Ford is a Michigan state court decision.
Yet no one challenges it
A lot of American "law" is just random Executive Orders, barely read bills, or state rulings that we all just play along with.
Its one of the reasons why Roe v Wade was able to be overturned, because no one bothered to actually put it into real writing. They just left it as it was, floating easily about to be destroyed with any effort by anyone who was willing to take the hit to their reputation.
Its also the reason why we sometimes see really retarded "Virginia outlaws slavery in 2011" ideas. Because its better to get that on the record than leave it in that floating state.
They replaced thinking with math.
That's a fantastic line. I'm stealing that.