EFT doesn't have a season pass, no microtransactions, no subscription model. A legit player pays once and that's it.
A cheater on the other hand has to buy a new account once it gets banned.
The devs are coincidentally making a decent margin of their profits through cheaters.
To go full tinhat ( again completely hypothetical), if you look at the absolutely illogical design decisions of the game (client side data) for example… it kinda looks like it was MADE for that level of cheating. Could it be that the devs are not only profiting of rampant cheating… but actually providing parts or even the whole cheating software to cheat devs/sellers?
Honestly it would be a brilliant Business Model, it's not only double dipping, it's triple dipping at least and the last two dips are repeatable.
Want more money? Update "Anti-Cheat" and sell a new hack to people.
Player buys the game -> player gets frustrated by how hard the game is ( intrinsically or later because of hackers) -> player buys cheat from someone -> cheat gets broken because "Anti-Cheat" (has to buy a new one) OR gets banned (has to buy a new account)-> Repeat
Even if Nikita is only passively making money of cheaters buying new accounts, I honestly wonder how much of their revenue is actually from people buying the game for their first time.
Did you know Nikita sells accounts in … bulk?