So the primary source of “ongoing” incomes will be a) the in-game store, which will sell cosmetic items such as pets, and b) the production of yearly expansion packs which will introduce new content into the game.
There is really no assumption built into our plan that we will continue to sell large numbers of copies of the game every month on an ongoing basis. Essentially we’re planning on like 90% of our income coming from the initial sales of the game at launch, and then with each expansion pack that’s released. The in-game store and “in-between expansion” sales are just additional revenue that would allow us to hire more people to add more things to the game.
Essentially, I am very confident we can support the “upkeep” costs of the game without an issue. The question is just how much staff we will be able to hire long-term to work on the game. We’ll scale that up (or down) based on our sales. By not starting off with a 30-person team, we’re running very lean which means we can do a lot with what we do have.