Sounds like the company needs to increase its bus factor. Luckily, I can help the company by not doing any of this nonsense, to pressure execs into hiring more staff so that the team is robust enough to weather a catastrophe.
You wouldn't shutter a studio that produced a critically acclaimed game and then tell your remaining employees they need to make more games like that one.
JFC. Imagine saying 'Strike One' out loud in person if you're on a date or something. Someone does that to me, the date is over. I don't have a lot of self-respect, but I have enough not to tolerate that bullshit.
I mean, let's not forget that the early consoles had their own pitfalls, a period of gaming that spawned tropes like 'Nintendo Hard' and 'Guide Dang It' in order to, among other things, pad out the length of what we would consider an otherwise barebones game, and to sell time on their hints and tips hotline. I do feel like there was less bullshit in the past, but it definitely still existed.
For me personally, it just got to me that Sony gave negative shits while Arrowhead was fighting an uphill battle getting their game playable in the face of overnight success, and now that everything is great and the hard work is done, Sony's seeing dollar signs and pushing their fucking corpo bullshit on a studio that sees zero benefit and suffers all the fallout. They're all too happy to shit where Arrowhead eats and it pisses me off.
I mean, that's the game, isn't it? You either grind out the super credits, and the fact that's an option at all is the Hallmark of a good game, or you pay for instant gratification. Live service doesn't support itself.
I bought a Blahaj the other week and my god it is so soft. I've been cuddling with it every night since.