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Of course they do. That is precisely what gives them some actual faith and confidence that the game will be around. Relying on someone's self interest (if the game dies, they are unemployed) is a lot safer than just hoping some random guy will choose to keep paying for hosting, hardware, and devoting his free time to the game.

Well, I don't know about those examples, but they sound pretty ridiculous and absurd. I'm talking about the real world, and real examples of real games, not some absurdly hypothetical situations that aren't relevant to the discussion.