I think some still do it for the original purpose, providing entertainment (though art or story or whatever), and do very well for it, while others only do it as they see how lucrative it can be.
Sadly it's not always the case, but when a game has had a lot of love put into and took the risk of doing something a bit different it pays off and they do well. Although sometimes when that happens thier investor may push them towards doing something not out of love but just as a cash grab.
It's like Pixar for movies, you can tell alot of love has gone into it, everything you hear about the studio screams it's a fun friendly place to be, they spend lots of time and money to send an animator out to actually take part in something they are researching and not just some course or videos, something many wouldn't do as it is wasteful of time and resources to them, but all they need to do it look at Pixar, see how well respected they are, how happy the employees tend to be and well they've done for money, have they even blinked at the past few years of financial trouble? Although I wouldn't go as far to say every movie they make is the same, some do seem like they where done just for the sake of it. But the rest create such an amazing experience, so emotional and just amazing to watch they survive.
Bastion was one of those games to me, even as short as it was, it didn't need more, it didn't need to be a £40 game and if it was made as one it may have lost so much of what made it a great journey.
Where as a game released in the same year by a far larger company with a bigger bugdet and development time, was a horrid journey to attempt to take for me, it all felt so soulless and frankly like Shovelware with it being so much like 5 other games they've made before. A lot would argue with me there, even hate me for saying it, but to me that company has seemed to have lost thier love for games, story telling and bringing entertainment into peoples homes.
Alot hate bioware since the EA merger but I don't see DA2 as that bad a thing, sure I'd rather 3 be much better and more like origins but all things considered it done a job, it told a story that needed to be told and couldn't have that much variation beyond the side you pick, it needed more sure, I guess it's comparable to a primer in painting but having the primer and rest of the picture may have been too much to do, and at least it wasn't the same story as origins, that would have meant no real progression, the game would have felt all to familar. I hope though it was a lesson to EA to back off Bioware and let them do more of thier thing, pressuring them into something else, a clone of another company will only ruin thier investment and not make money from it.
It's yes and no really, I can understand where investors and publishers come from in some respects but frankly when they call millions in profit as not worth it, a loss or whatever and sack people while scrapping an idea, it's really hard not to hate them. I brought up Recettear in the jap dev thread, the original company didn't make that much money from it and didn't see it as profitable to bring it overseas, one small team decided to take the risk out of love for the game and both have ended up better off for it, if anything it's a sign of how out of touch marketing is with the world over, but they have no interest in changing even to thier benefit which is just moronic.
Edit: Lol at lord of the MMo making good games, they used to sure but WoW has been nothing but a cash cow they are milking every drop out of for years. It's a due a fall which will shock Blizzard any time now, Catacylsm was such an app title maybe they saw it coming themselves.