You have to have a reasonable return on investment, or else you investment loses value. So let's say a reasonable return would be at least 5%, i.e. $43 million / year, nothing Bioware ever had before I'm pretty sure. But as you say, a successful MMO with say 2 million subscribers would probably give them around $200 million a year in profits, of course this has to be shared with LA, but still more than a reasonable return. (Edit: This doesn't count the development costs of the MMO of course, so they would also have to be factored in).