If you dont really believe in a product and want to play it save, you have other views on ROI than people wanting it to succeed even with less profit.
The first package of all the mercs etc was what Nexon got when they signed the contract. At that time everybody involved hoped for a huge success, but the player levels were not great and so we saw the “maintain with lower budget while it lasts” approach. Its a highly competitive market and i cant blame the person responsible for this strategy, its widely used not only in the gaming industry. Dumping more big money into a project, if you dont believe in a proper ROI is a risk not everyone is willing to take. Maybe we gotta be thankful the game didnt get shut down at all, but I guess the revenue is high enough for life support mode.
And if the guy calling the shots is too much into his figures, theres nothing anybody can do.
Even after the open beta starting hype has ended and “fresh” (but already produced) content was released regularly, the playerbase was declining and relativly small - a risk. With the publicly available information we have, i find it easy to falsify accusations of SD holding back content on purpose. They struggled to have the game maintained at its state, how would they quickly produce hidden content?
And I am pretty sure the faith in a product you produce yourself is much higher in SD… And they are likely to accept less ROI/higher risk than some detachted person overviewing and managing a multitude of products with a loose affiliation.
