[tad10]

Don't forget that Smed's breakeven is much lower than MS's was. They probably got the rights for VG very cheap and probably paid oh (rough guess) 4-5 million to help Sigil in those last 8 months. So breakeven for Smed might be (again rough guess) 6-7 million (maybe less) not 30 million. Lets say it is 7 million and there are only 50k subs (lowest reasonable guestimate)-- 50k x 14=700k per month. Lets say half that (350k) is additional overhead incurred by taking over the staff, the lease and etc (some of which goes away in 4-6 months). So even if they get no new subs and if he's sunk 7 million into Sigil he still gets a return in 20 months.

But wait there's more:
1. Smed's costs are actually probably 1-2 million below 7 million and his additional operating costs while a little high (maybe higher than 350k) right now (again because of lease and etc) start dropping below 350k once Sigil's office closes and the operations staff gets let go.

2. SOE has done succesful turn arounds before and it is not unrealistic to think that SOE might be able to pull in more than 50k numbers with some effort (150k -- probably not ever going to happen. Something between 70k and 100k -- maybe). So again say they manage to get subs back to 90k breakeven happens pretty quickly.

Edit:
3. And of course and still perhaps most importantly. Smed gets good (and valuable) PR in the community and buys some talent that I'm sure he's happy to have. SOE was bruised with SWG -- whatever you think of the game (I didn't particulalry like it so didn't play it more than a week) a couple of hundred thousand did like it and freaked out and quit over the NGE. SOE got blamed for the NGE but all evidence I've ever seen suggests that LA is far and away the worst offender in that debacle. If buying VG and other orphan MMOs and propping them up for a few years improves SOE's rep I think that's a good business plan.