There are two things all leaders should do. The first, is take the fall. The buck should stop with them. The second is to ensure that there is an effective tier of leadership below him-, her- or them- self to continue in the event of a disaster or simple departure to prevent the ship from ever being without a rudder.

Steve Jobs at Apple managed to do just that. The second time. The first time, egos meant that the lower tier led a coup and eventually damn near tanked the company. The second time around, an effective group was groomed over a decade to ensure an effective succession. And lo and behold, Apple is no weaker since Steve left and was ultimately lost.

At Nintendo, the home console business has imploded spectacularly. From the top of the pile in 2010, to enduring an embarrassing no-holds-barred beatdown from rivals Sony just three years later. Satoru Iwata made a bad call to wait so long on the Wii U. They probably had reasons - costs and difficulties in development and so on - but mistakes were made. The Wii U was about two years too late to execute on the strategy it represents. Iwata stood up, held out his hands and admitted his fault, and promised to redouble his efforts to fix it. The buck stopped with him, and he said so publicly. He did the same with the 3DS's mis-fire of a launch and turned it into a hit.

Microsoft were in crisis last year because Steve Ballmer fundamentally failed at both taking blame and building a succession plan. A few years ago, Microsoft was positively lousy with potential future CEOs. Ballmer ultimately forced all of them out of the company, one way or another, and never took responsibility for the failed visions that were holding back so many of Microsoft's operating divisions. It eventually cost him the support of founder Bill Gates, and now Microsoft is to be retooled by its new CEO, with his help. It will take time. There are open wounds.

Ken Levine is like Steve Ballmer. He is a failed leader. He lead a group of talented people and steered them per his vision, and they made a game. I didn't like it, you probably did, but it doesn't really matter. No matter what you think of BioShock Infinite, it was a failure financially, costing far too much and taking far too long to be profitable with anything less than mind-blowing sales, which it did not achieve.

There are credible arguments that it failed in terms of gameplay, narrative or in marrying the two as well, though those points are far more debatable. There is a common thread though. Anything about BioShock Infinite you can say failed, can be traced back to one man. The guy with the vision. The one calling the shots. Ken shaped the team, he pointed the way, he was responsible for the themes and the choice of gameplay style. He was the classic auteur. BioShock Infinite was his baby, more even than Titanfall is Vince Zampella's.

Its failures are his failures.

Ken still has a job, most of the people working for him don't.

Apparently Ken will go on to make smaller games with a small subset of the existing Irrational employees. The BioShock franchise will live on with 2K, but apparently keeping around the people who made those BioShock games to do that for them was not feasible. The implication is that 2K and Levine do not think those guys capable of conceiving of a new BioShock and building on it without Ken. If that's true, it is to Ken's eternal shame that he failed to impart that knowledge and ability to his subordinates, failed to engender an environment where new creativity could flourish.

Really though, does anyone believe that? That those guys couldn't handle the BioShock franchise, considering they built it? It's simply not credible to claim the series is in better hands being farmed out.

The game failed because Ken failed. Maybe 2K was going to shutter the studio because of that either way, but why is it okay for Levine, who should ultimately be held responsible, to get a secure job pursuing his creative interests, while the guys on the front line get the chop? Why does he think that's okay? Why is he willing to stay with 2K if this was their idea?

It just raises too many questions. And there are precious few answers.

But I know one thing for sure.

Ken Levine is a failure.