@Tripas:
But Endless Space came out first . . . which indicates a clear popularity there. Games that come out near each other make no sense as a comparison - only genres are a decent way of dealing with "competing" games in terms of success stories.
Unless you want to compare every game to Battlefield: The New One. Or CoD: The Fifteenth? Every game must suck compared to those sales
It's weird that you think Civ. started off awesome. Have you ever played Civ. original? Or even Civ III? Civ. was a solid great start to a series, but it was horrendously flawed and suffered from interface design of the time. It is no longer a "good game". Civ. III was widely panned (especially after SMAC, and also the design strengths of Civ. II) and then Civ. IV redeemed the franchise for many. CiV polarised debate between 1UPT and MUPT. BE continued that trend.
EDIT: oh, lawdy. A single game doing "badly" isn't indicative of a developer "losing it". There are a multitude of reasons why CiV remains popular. Ironically, it's probably evidence of Firaxis doing well. CiV is a recent product. CiV is going strong. Ergo, Firaxis succeeded.
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@Lexicus:
Nobody is letting them settle for sub-standard games. Unless you pre-order games, of course. Then you're giving them money for a non-existent product, letting them do whatever they want with your potential game.
The same goes for people that blindly believe in "indie" developers that aren't really indie. People keep bringing up Endless Legend. That isn't an indie game. Amplitude
have a publisher, which probably explains how they're able to fund extended development on Endless Legend when Endless Space hasn't worked out so well (being an earlier product, and developed I think when they were truly indie).
Is the industry mismanaged? Probably, in a variety of ways. A lot of business is, because it's profit-focused to the detriment of all else. Agreed on that.