[numbsafari]

Definitely not. I'm getting at the issue of employees versus founders. I'm responding to the commenters less than the OP. A lot of people are implying that the 72k would be spent on wages. If that was the expectation, then that's part of the failure.

I have friends who've launched XBLA games on much, much less working full time out of a basement. During development, they could barely pay rent. Afterwards, they buy new houses.

I feel like people don't take real risks any more, and seem to misunderstand what actual ownership of the outcome looks like.

Sign of the times?

And the issue of AAA ... well... Get a simple game or playable demo going and build off of that rather than shooting for the stars. Or did we lose site of what an MVP is, too? Sounds like the OP did.