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# What if games could be "pretty successful" and not out the developer out of business?
- URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-if-games-could-be-pretty-successful-and-not-out-the-developer-out-of-business/
- Published: 2026-04-16T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-16T12:00:02.000Z
- Author: Matt Birchler
- Tags: Links

I really loved this quote from John Linneman on [a recent Digital Foundry podcast](https://youtu.be/MbpOtGKEliM?ref=birchtree.me):

> There was a time when they could produce games in a moderately sustainable fashion, it seems, and they didn't need to be multi-million sellers. And in fact, the big multi-million sellers could help support this wide range of content, which in turn strengthens the platform. I think this black and white thinking of "if it's not the biggest thing, then it's a failure," is extremely dangerous and slowly whittles away at the overall life and vibrancy around a platform until it fails. Like this min-maxing that we're seeing, it's not healthy and it's not sustainable.

I could not agree more.