It's great that Pay Day 2 is a success. I hope the team that made it go on to make more games that they can feel proud of.
But I doubt most companies are going to follow them. The video game publishers don't want "successful" games. In fact, the investors and business people in charge of those organizations don't care about games at all. I am 100% certain that Bobby Kotick has never played a CoD game and has absolutely no interest in them. I'm also fairly sure that most CEOs don't play games, except for maybe a few on their mobile phones. Making games is no different to making anything else - they're in the business to make cash.
Publishers aren't content with "success" - they need MEGA BLOCKBUSTER GAMES that sell MILLIONS and make, MILLIONS. That's what they want - that's what they all want. As successful as Pay Day 2 was, the majority of investors would sneer at it because it wasn't a "massive hit", which is what they want. Profit isn't the goal - massive profit is the goal.
Of course, as Jim points out, it's unsustainable. You can't just keep pushing more money in and getting more money out infinitely. Many studios and publishers are failing, trying to chase the EA and Activision Dream. A few succeed, but most do not.
Oh well - that's capitalism. Investors take risks. When another crash happens (and it will - crashes are inevitable in capitalism), the investors will temporarily scale back their expectations.... for a while. Then as they become more and more profitable again, they'll set their sights on the billions-of-dollars they think they can get and the cycle will repeat itself. Over and over again.
