Not necessarily. It's easy to imagine mojang as a producer for indy game developers. Make the game you want, we'll support you with a paycheck, art, music, marketing, all the stuff around the game. In exchange, you get something like royalties for big games.
Honestly i'm surprised you don't recognize this model from movies and music and books and every other kind of media ever. It's possible to have endless debates about compromising artistic vision, but the fundamental idea is the same. We'll support you so you can create the art you love, in exchange we're keeping some of the profits.
There's currently no reliable way to predict what movie will hit the billion dollar mark and what won't. So I don't grasp why movie studios don't take "risks".
You can't dump $200 mil on a 15 minute silent short and expect to recoup your expense; unless you actually resurrected Charlie Chaplin.
However, I don't understand why Artist A needs $25,000 to make a multi-platinum record and why Artist B needs $2.5 mil. Personally I think you'd be better off spending $25,000 on 100 artists and see what shit sticks to the wall.
The irony is, if someone actually said "Hey we're willing to pay for you to write, but we're going to keep 80% of the profits" I'd say "fuck yes!" Because 1) I'm going to get paid less conventionally anyway, and 2) I might actually be able to produce something if I could quit my day job or even work 4 days a week.
When you only have time to write 1000 words or so in a week, how are you supposed to keep focus for 80 weeks to actually finish something. How are you supposed to focus on the same project, keep the same ideas/feelings/themes running consistent? In high school and college I usually got around 120,000 words written in the british summer holiday (like 6 weeks, if that). I wrote a novel and a half whilst doing a reviewing job after graduating. I can still do it, it's just finding the free time.
You can't dump $200 mil on a 15 minute silent short and expect to recoup your expense; unless you actually resurrected Charlie Chaplin.
Well, if you could make a $200 15 minute B&W silent short XXX movie with Angelina Jolie, Scarlet Johansson, Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Will Smith, and Jude Law, I think you wouldn't need mr. Chaplin.
Your comment appears to be a complete non-sequitur. You have no reason to think I wouldn't recognize such a model. Such a model has nothing to do with applying for a job at a game studio when you don't need money. And Mojang isn't following such a model at this time, nor is there any serious reason to believe it will in the future just because it might be compatible with Notch's personality.