by
Dleatherus
» 13 Nov 2013, 10:24
it's simply a matter of economics, not greed
some mmo's cost a small fortune to develop, run, maintain, and keep expanding upon
GTA5 was $170MILLION
ESO is rumored to be hovering around the $110MILLION mark - they have announced that they will be introducing fresh content approximately every 6 weeks _ I don't find it ridiculous like some people do, for a company to want to not only recover their initial costs, but to also make a profit
I want LiF, and by extension, the dev team here also, to be able to meet their financial goals, and more - their vision and goals cannot be driven by passion and enthusiasm alone, hence their fundraiser campaign at indiegogo - it's a much smaller financial enterprise/development than the two examples stated above, and the financial model is different but the goal is still the same - raise/make enough money to fund the development and be able to make enough to make a living doing it
it might help if you look at it like this:
ESO is like Disneyland and LiF is like a zipline friends have put up across a breathtakingly beautiful deep canyon
Some will prefer the 'corporate' setting with all that the experience has to offer, others will prefer the awesome adrenaline rush of the rawness of the canyon zipline
Neither is wrong - each will put a smile on their visitors' faces - costs of building and running each are very very different