> is it really reasonable for a games company to fire a director for a game that may not live up to hype yet meets sales goals and gets named game of the year?
I'm curious; even if someone's last game was a bit of a dud sales-wise, is it really reasonable to vehemently punish someone that has a proven stellar track record that you've depended on for years?
Example: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Sakaguchi is the father of Final Fantasy; but after the movie "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" was a complete flop, his career at Square-Enix (then Squaresoft) was over, and he was relegated to the back office. The last FF he created was FF9, and you can see how things progress from there.
It would be much more logical to have said "ok Sakaguchi, we have learned from this mistake. Let's try and do better on the next one", and continue onwards. But maybe I have the benefit of hindsight shrug