Strategy First acquires Malfador Machinations

[Baron Munchausen]

dogscoff said:
Too late now, but Malfador should have sold shares to us gamers in order to retain a level of independence/ closeness to the community. I'd have bought some.

I think the thing to remember is that SE5 has been in beta for months so it ought to be at least playable, if not very close to being finished. That means the new owners, unless they really are mind-bendingly stupid, are unlikely to wreck it with demands for loads of unfavourable new 'features'. I guess they might manage to bury it before release somehow, but in that case I'd be willing to bet a few beta copies made it onto the 'abandonware' circuit shortly after.

I don't know if you could legally sell shares to only a 'selected' group of people. An IPO might have opened him to takeover by unknown stock manipulators. But if it was possible to control who was allowed to buy then yes it would have been a much better arrangement than selling the whole store to a typical corporation that regards all of its games as 'revenue sources'. SE V is too close to being done to be much affected, but SE VI might become a disaster similar to MOO III.