Double Fine has been an indie studio for longer than Xbox has been invested in games. And as far as I know they've been situated on San Francisco for that entire time. They didn't just bumble into a trillionaire company and lounge on the job security.

Those kinds of statements show a misunderstanding of both the studio and how the games industry works. Any one of those engineers could have gotten into a FAANG the traditional way and doubled, if not tripled, their salary on arguably less involved problems than what they go through creating a real time game.

Its also likely why Schafer chose to take the studio back rather than go the route of finding a new publisher to work under. He still wants to work on games for a little longer rather than get a last paycheck and retire early.