30/80 are programmers, but only 8 of those are campaign related (which means they work on the sandbox aspect). Others work on things like the engine or missions (i.e. battles). Here's the actual quote:
Ahh, I misread it. Still thats a relatively small team when compared to many modern games, and even most Indie games with Tiny teams are pixel side scroller, or things that aren't as resource intensive. As much fun as Stardew Valley, Rimworld, and FTL are, they aren't remotely as detailed or engine intensive.
Thanks for the correction!
I think they just made millions of the back of this release and can afford to expand, that they havent shows their (managements) priorities.
And you understand the worst thing a company can do, is rapid, exponential growth, with out any kind of proper stability to back it.
Plenty of companies have gone belly up, after expanding tremendously after a small pay day (And yes, Millions is small when you consider paying 80+ Salaried staff annually).
Telltall games did this, and despite having massive success, they went bankrupt and ruined themselves.
EA Has wasted tons of money on failed games, Hell, The last of Us two, which should have been bullet proof off the back of the first one, was so bad that the company lost money producing the game.
The worst thing one can do when they come into money, is invest poorly and over spend.
I can almost guarantee you have zero idea how to actually run a business, and that's not an insult to you, as 80% of businesses will close within the first four years due to bankruptcy. It's one thing to get something to work on paper, it's another entirely logistically to deal with it in reality.
We also have zero ideas what their books look like. They spent 8 years on this project with zero income except the money they had from Warband and subsequent expansions. They literally could have been running negative money for years, for all we know or out of pocket expenses from the CEOs personal investment etc.
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