Well, this is going to be kind of a long winded explanation, bear with me. And I am a business owner, and former online game developer in real life so I’m not just pulling it out of thin air. Not entirely, at least lol.
My entire statement was made under the hypothetical that bravata owned the rights to diablo 2, it’s his/her baby, and already sold its 9-10 million copies.
A small studio could survive indefinitely off of the interest of that level of success, and never really need to sell another copy again. However, even tho you don’t need the sales, you will sell copies. More than what blizzard is selling, because gamers love to see that the developers care about the game as much as they do.
Blizz would be selling more d2r copies if they did something with it, rather than leave it floating dead in the water.
All it takes is releasing a really amazing update, and YouTubers start making videos like “why diablo 2 is better than ever in 2025”, and your passionate fans will sell the game for you. Zero marketing needed.
That is the business model, low overhead, reinvest sales profits for long term viability, and having knowledge of what your player base desires, so that you never will have a “mosaic situation”.
^basically the opposite of what blizzard is.