The point wasn't that they can't be massive companies; the point was that they are hard to scale. What works to get to one audience, or to build up to one size, doesn't mean you can throw money at it and "just" grow bigger. In fact, you're saying that when you say it's the wrong team to turn HQ into the next big media play.

European here: I haven't even heard of HQ before in my life, or at least I have no recollection of HQ and their game. And I want to believe I am 'close to the Tech sphere' and read the news daily. If HQ wants to be the next massive media company (in my mid these are Warner Bros, YouTube, Netflix, et al), good luck to them. From this article I foresee a slow and painful demise of HQ. You can have the best product of the planet. If the CEO/big boss/leader is a prick, then doom is inevitable. Everybody will hate their jobs/lives and they will hate (ofc) you, the CEO. And everyone with a half-good idea will run off somewhere else.

That hasn't stopped Oracle or Zynga from clinging to life like a highly malignant tumour.

I wish that were true.

> There is a reason why telcos are buying up media companies

The other way to read that is that there's a reason telecoms are buying media companies and not the other way around. Media companies are cheap, and they give ~cable companies competitive advantages (or another gun in a Mexican standoff) through vertical integration.