I find that specifically targeting, or dropping blame on larger business' for buying out competition of smaller business' is a bit absurd truthfully. No one pointed a gun to the smaller studio and told them to sell their company, they willingly did it for a chunk of change - and when it comes down to business - that's all it is - which way the money flows. I don't see anything wrong with this.

Yes, it's obvious they have to sell it, they aren't getting robbed, even I said I might be tempted to do the same if the price is right. I just want to retire. I guess we are suckers for cash.

It's not always for cash. Sometimes these buyouts occur with stock as well. George Lucas sold LucasFilm (to retire, basically), and sold it half for cash (two billion in cash), and two billion worth of Disney stock. He goes from owning 100% of LucasFilm, to Disney owning all of LucasFilm, and George Lucas being the 2nd largest shareholder of Disney (at 2%). The first largest shareholder is Steve Job's widow. Steve Jobs gained his huge share when Disney bought Pixar.

Steve Jobs, when kicked out of Apple, managed to get back in by selling Apple his NeXT Computer company. YouTube was sold to Google for Google stock.

Going farther back in history, William Durant, who founded General Motors, was kicked out by the investors for some bad financial decisions. So Durant co-founded Chevrolet, sold Chevrolet to General Motors, and became the head again.

Other reasons for selling include:

- Your company is losing money and you don't want all your employees to end up on the street.
- Your company has grown so large that you are no longer the best person to manage it.

- Your company is now in a more mature and "professional" position, but you no longer enjoy managing it, so you want to get back to startups.

- The company buying you is one of your favorite companies.

- You want to use the money to start a new company in a different industry or in the same industry.

Thing is though, I can see where it would be a bad thing if every small company had a fee. As I noted, many times the companies buy it to sit on it, not to grow it. That is the part that annoys me.
Good software disappears never to be seen again.

Fine. So let the innovators innovate, cash out, let the giants sit on their purchases without innovating, making room for more innovators to compete.

That is why you have all of these patent trolls sprouting everywhere,

Patent trolling is an unrelated issue. Companies buying smaller companies is not "why" we have patent trolls.

I think this should at least be a concern for indie developers. I mean, Nintendo trying to sue mr flappy bird, and for what?

Nintendo didn't sue Flappy Bird. A bunch of people on the web guessed that Nintendo might've threatened to sue the Flappy Bird developer, and then that guess of a threat to sue became a rumor which became a false "fact" that Nintendo did sue. But it's wrong.

Nintendo came out and basically said, 'Uh, no, we aren't sueing him, didn't threaten him, and aren't even remotely bothered by the game.'. Then the author of Flappy Bird came along and said, 'Uh no, nobody threatened to sue me.'

That's the internet for ya!

As Winston Churchill once said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

But, if Nintendo did sue (which they did not!), they'd be justified in doing so - because it was clearly capitalizing off of Nintendo's artwork and games and popularity - and the game wasn't a parody, so free speech doesn't apply here. The internet seems to be very "Because I like X, then X needs to be legal." regardless of the consequences and logic and facts behind why X doesn't make sense.

We could get into why copyrights are a good thing, but that's a different discussion.

Copyrights and patents and trademarks being abused doesn't mean copyrights and patents at a basic level don't have benefits for society in general. The abuse needs to be fought, the system needs to be fixed, but the solution isn't to destroy copyrights, patents, or trademarks.

The concern for indies need to be: "How can I make the best game possible... using my own creations, and standing on its own merit?"

(instead of playing off other people's or other company's property)

Yes, there needs to be some relaxing of what the law considers 'derivative works', but the internet needs to also know that just because I can do something, that doesn't make it right; and just because I like something, that doesn't make it good (where good = "beneficial for larger society (and not just self-focused)" and "beneficial to your own self, in the long-term (and not just short-term gain at long-term cost)").