If the staff really has been reduced to the level I saw quoted, can that really be considered open?

I don't know what you saw quoted and I certainly didn't see you personally quote anything. I read the thread Sachys linked. It reads like "over the years, we've accumulated lots of people we can't currenty supply with profitable tasks, and we had to let a bunch of them go, because no one in their right mind should be paying a 60% tax on salaried employees for Putin to spend on botox. Instead, we've signed on the people we need (who may or may not be the same people) as contractors, who'll be paying downwards of 6% depending on whether they can write off LSD as a business expense."

Why do niche titles have to stay that way? Can't stuff from smaller genres or studios expand to wider appeal without sacrificing what made them unique?

Oh shit! you played hawken as well, I swore we played together! remember me:?? I mained the CRT :) played that game till it died.. was a closed beta player.

You can use the iron will of the state to force people to play the games and crush dissent. :P

Maybe a bigger marketing budget would help to at least let more people know the game exists. But not really, to me a niche game is niche because it doesn't have wider appeal.

State enforced gaming sounds like something out of The Twilight Zone.

It would be a pity if the Bachelor and Changeling stories did not come out now that they have the entire world fleshed out with the town map, a functioning (albeit strange) economy, NPC models and AI, all of the items and artwork... The way I see it, they only need to write some new text and implement quest triggers and animation for new events. Maybe I'm wrong.

That's still a good amount of labor hours; making the nodes and rigging if any new animations have to be made. Scripting, not so much, but can be intensive.