: As I recall, Don Matrick was also responsible for the shuttering of Ensemble
: Studios. Halo Wars had a rocky development, but released to critical
: acclaim and phenomenal sales numbers. This was a console RTS, which should
: be a niche genre, but copies were selling like hotcakes in 2008. Anybody
: with two brain cells to rub together would have greenlit a sequel
: immediately.

: Thing is, Don Matrick had a clause in his contract that he would get a bonus
: if he met some profit threshold for Microsoft Game Studios. And the way he
: tried to meet that threshold was by closing down studios that wouldn't
: deliver another game for a few years, so they showed up as a net loss on
: the spreadsheet.

: So, we were robbed of what could have been Halo Wars 2, and a bunch of other
: ideas that ES was working on. And Don Matrick failed to earn that bonus.

By the gods, I hadn't heard that one before. I already disliked him for running Xbox into the ground, but I could at least chalk that up to incompetence. Being out of touch, and chasing trends.

What you've described though, that's unequivocally evil. To shut down the whole studio, firing hundreds, just to get a fatter bonus. I'm so glad he got the boot.