It seems like the model is much closer to that of a Hollywood movie than that of regular software development (which in a lot of ways makes sense). At the begin

It seems like the model is much closer to that of a Hollywood movie than that of regular software development (which in a lot of ways makes sense). At the beginning of a project, you only need a handful of people to develop the core of the idea you want to develop. You don't need a full-sized AAA game development team until later on in the project. So the only way to keep all of Irrational as it is now (remember, the team grew substantially through the development of Infinite) together is to immediately turn around and work on another AAA game, and at that one that's already ready for immediate large-scale development. That's the model of someplace like Infinity Ward or DICE, where you need to churn out this year's iteration of Franchise X. It doesn't sound like Levine wanted to do that, though, and if the 15 or so people he's keeping with him are all key people at Irrational, you're left with a large staff but no leadership to shepherd them through getting Obligatory Bioshock Sequel developed. When you develop Windows 8, you know what's next (depending on the scale you want to look at -- there's Windows 8.1, Windows 9). Same with Office -- you iterate on the existing product to improve it and add features. There's a handful of cash cow game franchises that feature a similar iterative development model. But much of video game development is a more artistic or creative process, for a lack of a better term (that isn't to say that regular computer programming isn't creative, I think it very much is, but it's a different sort of creativity). And expecting to get that kind of creativity through project management is how you get Call of Duty games. I'd rather Levine work on more original games like Bioshock Infinite, rather than working on more Bioshock games that are unoriginal.