I do believe this is the way of the future, particularly for a niche market like naval sims, turn based strategy, and similar products. The bad news is that things take a good deal longer to develop and typically have more bugs at initial release (due to limited budget for testing), the good news is that the developers typically stick with the product, even after it's commercial life has dwindled to squash bugs (often with community help).
ex. Matrix Games just released a patch for a turn based strategy game "Uncommon Valor" that was initially released several years ago!
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