The decision makers directly above him could have easily replaced him without actually replacing him, but I don't think they would have cared about the bad PR from cutting him at all. Acquiring a studio or rockstar is both good pr and good for business, but firing be a bad employee or cutting a failing studio is also good for business as far as shareholders and execs were concerned.
Only if you believe businesses are run by mustachio-twirling villains who sit around trying to ruin games for fun.
To answer your business-management-related question though, I am looking at the price of their stock over since 1990.
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/EA/financials
1990: $0.xxx
2000: $20
2010: $17 (valley between 2008-2013)(the global financial crisis?)
2015: $55
2021: $145 (there is a drop between 2018-2020 down to 100)
Whatever these guys are doing, judging from their stock price, it works. Shareholders like them.
Sales/Revenue filed:
2016: 4.37B
2017: 4.81B
2018: 5.16B
2019: 4.93B
2020: 5.47N
Cash cow...
Can’t you folks use decimal points correctly?
As someone in England, I know of no-one who would call it a period rather than a point. Period is considered an Americanism.
Manager or Exec B fires a failing, unsuccessful or insubordinate employee, or saves the company money by reducing headcount and the complexity of running a studio. Good for business!
They're two separate, distinct operations. A and B are not necessarily the same person, though they can be. It's not a planned evil scheme or anything like that; the separation of time alone makes them independent events with independent motivations (in most cases, as tearing down another person's sandcastle to build up your own does happen sometimes too).
"Don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower" and so on.