Comment by gexla

If the game were actually fun, there could be money coming in from players who value the fun more than making money. Axie may have an element to this, but I hear it's not fun. The term for these players is "whales." They are willing to spend a lot for fast progression and domination. A game which pays Filipinos may have money coming in from a well-off player in China. There could be schemes where whales hire Filipinos to grind for loot and gold. However, it's hard to see a situation where a game could pay for development and support thousands of grinders. It would be interesting to see how big the MMORPG grinding economy is. That might give us an idea of how many people these games might support.