1. Create something amazing, pour artisan-level craftsmanship into it, gain huge following
2. Exploit your popularity by churning out branded garbage
3. Profit
Even Disney's not immune. Have you seen how many direct-to-DVD/streaming 'movies' there are that cash in on their popular franchises? It sucks.
I have a strong feeling that a lot of those are made exclusively for toddlers, who tend to frequently get obsessed with consuming anything-and-everything related to a given franchise. I don't feel bad that they're not well-made; nobody could keep pumping good pieces of media out at the rate an obsessive toddler will want to consume them.
> [Sakaguchi's] employer Square refused to give him permission [to make an RPG] as it expected low sales of such a product
> ...the title was later changed to Final Fantasy as the game was thought to be the company's final project under the threat of bankruptcy. Sakaguchi also explained that the new title stemmed from his personal situation: had the game not sold well, he would have quit the games industry and gone back to university.
A bit editorialized on my part, but still.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_%28video_game%29...