I’d suggest following that link and watching the video. Author Hangout on Air - #3 by jasonstevanhill While there’s a lot going on there, they do touch upon financial matters and Jason discusses money.
Old post that it is this is also worth reading. CoG business model - #15 by jasonstevanhill
Secondly, we want to lower the bar for entry for the writing and game-design professions. Right now, if you want to be a writer or game designer, you move to Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco, and beg, borrow or steal to support yourself while fighting to get a very few number of positions that in turn have a very high churn rate (meaning, people who give up and pursue other careers).
By offering the Hosted Games program, free development tools, and a community of devoted testers, we hope that we can help both hobbyists and the aspiring writers and game-designers of the future break into that world. If that’s because you’re producing three or four games for us a year, awesome. If that’s because you use a publication with us to get your book read by an agent or your spec script sold or to get hired by EA, good on you. The point is, you can get started on this from Kansas or Ontario or Manila. You can do it in your spare time, lowering both your risk and opportunity costs.
