How much did she get paid for the first two games? And how much is the replacement getting paid?
Without these pieces of information it's impossible to judge whether or not she was actually getting stiffed, or just being greedy.
You know something's wrong when your players are more excited about re-releases of old games than any new games. Still, I think WoW will keep them afloat for the next decade at least.
It skyrocketed because it went viral. You can't know if something will go viral on the internet, it has to happen naturally (Advertisers have been trying to figure this out for years and failed).