Originally Posted by
UkcsAlias
Stable income is usualy better than a burst of income. Bursts cause unrealistic standards to be made, and is highly unpredictable.
Effectively over 10y it doesnt matter if 1 game made 3b in a single year (and then 9y of no income), or 3b in 10 years. But for companies that burst of 3b in a year is often not good. As rarely that 3b will be spend the correct way (it goes to shareholders and not the people working at the company). In most cases a burst of money barely helps a company staying alive, as that money is spend rapidly. While with a more stable income that cannot be done.
And 10y is long! Its more than enough time for a studio to die by lack of successes. Managers dont like having inactive money in a company, they want new projects to make more money. And yet, upon the first sign of failure (once they have their money) they leave. That is why WoW is such an important game, its basicly an ensurance for the company to keep running. And expansions on that provide the bursts the shareholders want, which also keeps them happy.
So those numbers that you showed are meaningless. Of the 3.2b of ffxiv you can be sure a big portion went to the actual devs of SE, which for FF7R most likely didnt happen (once made and released, no maintenance is needed anymore - which means any profit there can be used to give to shareholders).
There is a reason why GTA still doesnt have a new release. Keeping the older games alive and living on its microtransactions (or in ffxiv's case subscriptions) is a lot more beneficial as business model.