It's a common and accepted notion. Monolithic publisher empire-corporations swallow independent developers, strip them of their merit and force them to mass-produce substandard variations on their profitable IPs. Yet these megapublishers seem to make vast profits and are by all accounts generally successful. Since they seem to spend all their money on acquiring (and subsequently destroying) indie developers, how can this be? What black magic or tax dodge are they employing? The most well known example of this thinking (and the company I expect sprang into the minds of almost everyone reading the previous paragraph) is Electronic Arts. Continue »