ever since he started messing with these obviously cheesy commercial sounding tunes (first attempts were on "Do You Dream" in 2010 and a lot more already on "Scream" in 2012), he has mentioned it multiple times in some interviews, that "artist needs to have radio hits to become bigger" which sounded more like an excuse of why he's releasing this garbage.
and the main thing is that he NEVER had any of these cheesy records striking viral and becoming radio hits whatsoever, never, they all flop forgotten two weeks after the release. they mostly sound bloody tasteless, like the worst examples of such easy listening feel good poppy tunes. if you compare to Armin, he's at least much more successful as a sellout, having some actual commercial sounding radio hits since This Is What It Feels Like.
so I have a feeling that if Markus stayed confident and true to his sound and his fans from the late 2000s instead of trying to satisfy everyone, in a long run he could've built a stronger brand of himself as an artist and a DJ and become even more successful and, what's more important, authentic.