Quite the strawman you’ve built there. No. Project Zomboid is a labor of love, it’s not free. Dwarf Fortress is also a labor of love, which IS free, but also has a premium version on Steam with hand crafted artwork and music. The creators of both games have and will continue to work on those games in periods where it generates no money and in periods where they’ve made millions in sales. They could go 2 years or more without making a profit and they’d still work on those games. They also wont hand off these projects to another team unless it’s for health/life threatening reasons. Because they’re labors of love.

If you think for even one minute that Tencent/Funcom wont stop supporting Conan Exiles when the sales for the Bazaar dry up, you’re a more optimistic person than I am.