What is more sad is that this exact story has played out hundreds, thousands of times with slight variation.
I don't understand how the people involved cannot see those patterns. Cannot see the history. Cannot see beyond the current moment.
I'm really not sure if it's greed or self-deception or ambition or something else entirely.
For a similar, but different story:
Some time back, a game development studio called Harebrained Schemes was created from passionate individuals in the Shadowrun and Battletech community - founders who had been involved since the early tabletop days. They rebooted Shadowrun with 3 new games, and in 2018 used Kickstarter to create Battletech, which is loved by the community and has an active modding scene.
Then, immediately following the success of BT, they sold out to Paradox. Paradox is not a terrible publisher in the grand scheme of things. But that sale did change HS's priorities. They were prevented from making another Battletech game, because frankly it's a more niche product with older fans. It does not have 'mass market appeal'. They instead made Lamplighter's league, something that clearly they did not have their hearts in.
In the end, it flopped, HS had massive layoffs and now was let go by Paradox. We will likely never get another game from them. There will never be a Battletech 2.
It's so frustrating. They had passionate individuals and a loving fan base and GREAT games, and they threw it away.