... but to me it seems that the way some are going about this will only make the situation worse...
Drifter this game is still here only because we as whole community pay some money. Once we stop the server will be OFF forever. Belive me there will be no change at all doesn't matter how we deal wit this situation. That kind of game structure is working until new users come on board (if You have really a lot the party goes on much longer). When they don't the game will fall and this happend now, they simply know that true before. And there will be no MORE users but LESS because they can't catch teams which start this game 10-15 seasons before...as long as they can paid server and make some profit the game will be not shutting down.
Ps. When You have a business which is not growing up and the possibility is smaller every next month, You dont invest more money, more time etc. You just cut your costs as much as You can and do something else.
To be fair, the developers could easily run this game at a (small) profit purely from revenue from adverts. I think it's quite obvious they're not paying a development team, and they hardly do anything with the game. So their expenses are very close to NIL, and they're just collecting cheques and laughing all the way to the bank. For more information on how freemium games like this work, please see:
http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e06-freemium-isnt-freeThere is no reason why a new team could not catch the older teams. Unlike the real world, there is a ceiling in GKO on how much things can be upgraded. In GKO, nothing is better than "the best". Sure it will take 10-15 seasons to catch up to another team that has played that long, maybe even 20. It's true in any game like this I think. This game just is a bit slow paced; 20 seasons would take almost 7 years to complete!
Last but not least,
When you have a business which is not growing up and the possibility is smaller every next month, You dont invest more money, more time etc. You just cut your costs as much as You can and do something else.
Or, they could sell it
if the developers wanted it to grow, they'd be
developing it
But really, we don't know their revenue is shrinking since it is based on premium fees and advert revenue, not the number or activity of users.