This is the situation we’re in, even if you don’t like it. Yes, communities can take care of a lot. Yet for so many people the creation process and love of a product is why they create, not the money. I cannot blame the devs for wanting their game to reach as many people as possible. Nor can I blame Sony for wanting to make money, without that desire we wouldn’t have as many opportunities to play amazing titles as we do, though we can absolutely blame the way that money is made.
So perhaps you may have gone a different route. Maybe it would have worked, maybe not. Maybe many of us only recognize John Deere, and maybe people in the industry know of alternatives. Point is, I am hesitant to blame devs for nearly anything nowadays. Because this isn’t 1999, these titles aren’t for the PS1, Dreamcast, or even PS2 or original Xbox. It’s 2024 my dude and they had to make a choice: Get the resources, finagle some barely working alternative, or get help. I think many of us would have done the same.
Go shit on the big companies who are almost always the problem. Everyone else, man… they’re just making the shit they want because many of them love the process. We’re lucky we see so many projects reach the light of day, especially when for every successfully finished one I’d bet there are a 100 which are scrapped part way through.