Speaking of running companies into the ground, it's amazing how a lot of great companies in the industry died - Microprose, Interplay, Midway, Bullfrog, that company that made Evil Genius. Game industry has a short lifespan.
That's because making good games doesn't work. The only reason why Nintendo and Attari have outlasted Bullfrog and Westwood is because the former are prepared to make bad games at a low price and sell them high, while the later spend tons of money on making a tripple-A title that doesn't sell well enough to cover it's expenses*.
From what I've seen, good games do make money, and the ones that don't are
usually awesome concepts, with great implementation, that run out of time and/or money and get pushed out the door in a half-assed "nowhere near ready for release" form, with crippling bugs and an overall unpolished feel.
*Note that this is not exclusive to game developers. Remember the crappy overpriced watches that are made a dime a dozen in china and sold for half the price of a Rolex here?
Never seen one, but I have seen a lot of $10-20 watches made in china, that both look and work great (my last watch being one of them, which lasted three years of wearing every day until the clasp broke and it wouldn't close anymore; kept time to within a few seconds over the span of months, too)
Remember the factory meat sold in most supermarkets made from chickens that have never had more then a square inch of personal space? Cut on quality, cut on production costs, exploit your work force and rip off suppliers, that's how you make a profit.
Chicken's chicken once it's dead and cooked. What should it matter whether it suffered in life or not? Sure as hell doesn't taste worse for it.