This misses the point in so many ways, I'm not sure where to start... but here goes:
That is how you ensure people’s skills are being utilized where they are needed/wanted.
Except that that's the opposite of what happened here; their skills were wanted by many people, to the point of profitability and sustainability, but other people, who didn't care about the skills or how they were utilized, decided that whatever the product was, it wasn't good enough. Their skills were literally not part of the consideration here at all.
And yeah, it is conceivable that the video game industry would have to shut down at some point in response to developments happening in society. Other forms of entertainment becoming more preferred. Or things going sideways so the focus becomes meeting more basic needs. That kind of flexibility is a good thing.
Except that's not what we're talking about either. Once again, this was not a situation where the actual demand for the product was not present due to media evolution, or product quality, or lack of consumer discretionary spending; the demand was present. The product was both in-demand and in fact profitable.
That kind of flexibility is a good thing.
This was not flexibility, this was- again- the opposite of that; a rigid metric that did not consider anything beyond cash growth, despite the fact that products are the point of a company. Without products, the company will not generate any profit. Without companies generating profit, the market as a whole will not grow. Without market growth, there is no ability to invest elsewhere (or at least, at a level to measure against).
That's why this (and all the other hyper-growth-minded investment planning) is so short-sighted; sustainability ensures continued operation, which enables future profits. Demanding unsustainable growth ensures collapse, which precludes future profits. And eventually people who have been burned by this will start cutting investors out of the equation anyways, which also precludes profits (for investors).
The whole, "I could have put my money elsewhere in the market and made more" as a justification to demand unsustainable growth is also form of gaslighting by investors; as you note, if they knew where to put their money instead to make more, they would have done so. They invested in a given company because they hoped it would outperform other companies, and they should have to suffer that loss personally just as they would enjoy above-market profits personally. This is just another attempt at "socialized losses and personalized gains", by trying to make themselves out to have been engaging in something other than gambling (which is exactly what investing in a company whose products you don't care about is).
If you have people investing millions of dollars into something, it isn’t art but business.
No, it is both if it is a business that creates art. Without the art (product), it would not have a business.
Art is just a product. Like any product, it can be produced for profit, for personal use, for communal use, or for any other reason. But without goods and services being produced, no money will be exchanged. The goods and services are a precondition to business, not the other way around.
