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They do pay out of pocket. Selling t-shirts or mugs is the same as selling cookies door-to-door. It's not related to charging for perks in the game. The money goes to the people running the website who are the same people running the game but it's not related to the game itself. The aforementioned t-shirts or mugs could bear the logo of the game on them but that still doesn't make them perks since no matter how many t-shirts you buy, you have no advantage over a player who doesn't have one. And since sales of t-shirts and mugs are probably not high enough to maintain the cost of running the game (after all, how many t-shirts and mugs does one really need or want for that matter?), the owners of the game in question may very well pay hardware expenses out of their pocket with the occassional alleviation of some of the cost from the sale of something off their website.
Jason
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