So, for those who don't pay attention to videogames:

Microsoft bought up --the entire middle class-- of the videogame industry (including **literally all** the big, oldschool, classsic rpg companies) - and just absolutely, non-metaphorically, destroyed them. Just destroyed them.

They have destroyed decades of institutional knowledge with waves of layoffs, all while being flush with cash, seemingly in an effort to game their stock price while cozying up to Trump.

It's impossible to overstate what they've done if you've no familiarity with the videogame world. It would be like if the Smithsonian closed the museum, moved the art to a warehouse for 'curation' purposes, then had series after series of layoffs until most of their staff was gone, all the while cozying up to art smugglers.

No, that's a terrible analogy.

Here's a better one:

Tesla (yes, Elon Musk ketamine-head crackbro Tesla) is doing a better job with cars then Microsoft is stewarding the ENTIRE INDUSTRY IT JUST BOUGHT AND DESTROYED.

It's the artistic equivalent of buying a library, calling all the booklovers to watch, and then BURNING IT DOWN before going to have a party at the Gatsby estate.

A giant company just bought up SIGNIFICANT amount of cultural art under the promise of protecting it, then strip mined it for resources and destroyed it.