[drchopchop]

This is exactly what happened on his last big space project (Freelancer) - way over time/budget, too much random micromanaging of meaningless things, etc. Microsoft had to swoop in at the end and save the project, removing him in the process.

[thereddaikon]

And it turned out to be a pretty good game. Which shows he has good ideas, he just needs constraints. Its a really common pitfall in creative industries. You don't see it as much in AAA games I think because devs tend to be more structured. But it happens a lot in indie games and all the damn time in film. There are countless movies which were vanity projects for the directors.