Here’s what Tim Schafer said about selling Double Fine to Microsoft at the time:

> "I think it's perfect for us, because we can just focus on doing our inspired weird games, and not worry about how we're going to get our next deal. We aren't chasing down our next funding and thinking about how many more months of funding we have all the time."

https://gameinformer.com/2019/06/23/tim-schafer-on-microsoft...

Money. Someone made a lot of money selling IP and the skills of the team.

"Little devs" in this context is still a company that probably has investors, investors that can push for the acquisition. Even if a small dev studio is self funded or has normal debt that they can realistically pay off, the money on the table for the owner is hard to resist. If the owner has qualms, the whole pitch of "we'll give you artistic independence and the funds to make what you want" will seal the deal.

The only people that can tell Microsoft to gargle their gonads are already rich as fuck or have a will of steel and principles uncommon with entrepreneurs.

Because big companies can spend way more on marketing than you.

If a big company decides to make a game very similar to yours, they can make theirs win by throwing more money into marketing than you can. Do you want them to spend that marketing budget on your competition or on you?

The directors like money. And are probably beholden to their investors.