In defense of CA, Bioware had a hell of alot of leverage in dealing with publishers after the phenomenal success of Baldur's Gate and its expansion pack. When they followed it up with Baldur's Gate II, an even bigger seller and considered one of the best rpgs of all time, it became essentially a seller's market for Bioware's properties and ideas. I'm sure all subsequent contracts gave Bioware sweet deals and a great deal of say with regards to content, support, etc.
Shogun and Medieval were huge successes (Shogun sold over 750 thousand copies, Medieval over 1 million) but not the overnight sensations that BG1 & 2 were. Who knows what CA's current contract with Activision is like? If CA is contractually obligated to Activision to make a sequel to Rome and each of these titles wind up selling over 1-1.5 million copies each then CA will have that much more leverage when it comes time to renew the contract or seek a deal elsewhere. However, given the limited patch support we've seen with Medieval and now Rome I doubt CA's contract with Activision is as sweet as we'd like to think it is.
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