We've seen it time and time again. A corpo (specifically a game developer in this example, but it can apply to any form of entertainment) gets pushback from their existing fans when they release a sub-par product, and they have every excuse in the book for why they can't give their fans what they want. Ratings, platform policies, payment processor policies, "legal gray area", etc.

Then, when the corpo is close to bankruptcy, all of a sudden those excuses don't matter anymore. Ratings? Fuck em, we'll take an AO rating to keep our artistic vision intact! Platform policies? If they don't like it we won't release on their platform. Payment processors? What payment processor problems, we never had those! Australia doesn't like some content in our game and is demanding we censor? Well fuck Australia they only got like 20mil people living there anyway we'll just not release our game there!

What I want to focus on here is the deeper message they're sending when they do this. When they make excuses for why they can't give their existing fans what they want, they're REALLY telling you that you are not their target audience anymore. Those excuses especially ring hollow when you can point to countless examples of their competitors giving you what you want, and somehow not running into the issues they described. They just don't want to tell you that they consider you a tiny fraction of the potential audience they could have, and they're no longer trying to appeal to you but to the much larger "modern audience." What you want doesn't matter, because you are less than 1% of the "wider audience" and they'll gladly sacrifice you to get that 99%. Hell they likely won't even need to sacrifice you, because they view you as a mindless consoomer that'll just keep consooming <brand> no matter how bad they ruin it because that's what you've always done.

Then when the "modern audience" fails to materialize and they discover they're actually LOSING sales by appealing to the "wider audience" (who could have guessed that making "entertainment" for nobody would result in nobody wanting to buy it?) all of a sudden in their desperation YOU become their target audience again. When they thought they could get more money from someone else than from you, you didn't matter to them. Now that they need you to come back and save them, they're willing to bend over backwards to give you what you want.

That's what you need to keep in mind before you decide to give these backstabbers another chance. They really are like a girlfriend that dumped you for someone else, then a week later when that relationship falls apart wants you to take her back. You know the second they feel they can get more money from someone other than you, they'll immediately ditch you for them again.

Now I'm not saying you should NEVER buy from them again, just take advantage of your power. Don't settle, don't compromise. Make them give you EVERYTHING you demand and them some, and if it meets your standards by all means give them money for a product. But the second that product starts getting altered to appeal to someone other than you, close your wallet.

We need to keep these corpos one flop away from bankruptcy at all times to ensure they keep giving us what we want. It's sad it has to be that way, but they've proven they have no loyalty and thus fear is the only way they can be kept in line. Don't feel sorry for them, they did it to themselves.