What is the kind of cost that a small scale company would face funding a large scale game like RPG or MMO? A lot of small groups doing this that look to bring in artists or auxiliary programmers offer profit share, but say if the company was paying everyone a wage or commission, what would be the average cost? What are other steps that small companies take to secure funding for large scale games?

Of course I realize the high cost is the reason a lot of companies don't do this. But I'm just curious (:

: Added some tags to the topic.

What is the kind of cost that a small scale company would face funding a large scale game like RPG or MMO? A lot of small groups doing this that look to bring in artists or auxiliary programmers offer profit share, but say if the company was paying everyone a wage or commission, what would be the average cost? What are other steps that small companies take to secure funding for large scale games?

Of course I realize the high cost is the reason a lot of companies don't do this. But I'm just curious (: