They now need a second revenue stream.
Short term that's S42 but like pop records there is an initial huge sales spike as the game rides advertising and hype, then once the interested parties have purchased sales die off and it slips down the charts to obscurity - the initial backers have already paid for it, the backers who joined when S42 and PU were no longer bundled will buy to have something to play and hype will pull in players who thought the pledge was a scam and hopefully that'll bring in dough - how much I dunno, as a million people have already bought it outright with their pledge.
Next I see the REC store becoming more like the Limited ship sales - SH and Sabre go on sale every other fortnight so you go a week with, a week without. If you like one over the other and want to fly it full time, dump some cash or GTFO until the game is finished and you can buy one with earned in-game credits.
A lot of the technical magic they have been working on could have been an earner for them, however with the issues the Cryengine company had a while back not paying staff etc it is questionable as to if there is going to be a Cryengine to be able to licence the improvements on... That could have been a BIG earner for Roberts but right now, from the perspective of a backer, it just looks like a waste of time and money when there is a game to be made.
They always said they had enough money to finish the game outright so this is a wait-and-see - we will definitely get S42 if nothing else.
