Why not? Seeing the popularity of FFH2, there's no reason for the industry not to learn from its success.
There are quite a number of diverse reasons why the most existing companies in the existing markets (aka where customers mostly actually pay for software because the means are exist.) won't touch such games. (Some of the reasonable some not. Most of those are based on opinion / outlook / corporate culture / makeup of the market and so on...).
If you want a bit of elaboration, just send me a message via PM. I have some quite limited knowledge about those matters and would surely not mind to offer those words to someone involved if it would even remotely help to bring about more good games like that come out of it...
I rather think that those games like FFH2 and comparable games of other genres (extreme depth and steep learning curve, high ammount of content... You get the picture) may well continue to come into being more and more from the internet-community as projects of individual or teamed free dedicated freelancers. (its unlikely that all those actors would be as altruistic when it comes to financial matters as the FFH2-Team is.
And i doubt there needn't be. Nothing bad / wrong at making a living from making people happy with your work.
It just makes the project so much sweeter in a way...
But any kind of project that starts out as a free thing will garner that kind of support for sure...
No matter if later on you accept donations or go down the route of going partly / fully commercial.)
That its possible in a stellar way has been proven beyond doubt here. (I'm sure Unicef doesn't mind the donations.)
Both from scratch or using SDKs like those from Firaxis' or Bethsoft's or Stardock's games which also have an interesting policy towards modding including generous legal terms. (the Civ 4 Manual is clear enough on the matter. If Kael + Team would have wanted, I'm sure beyond doubt that Firaxis whould have published it cheerfully quite some time ago...)
Doesn't mean that commercial newcomers (both startups in traditional economies as whole industries from the emerging economies) can't or shouldn't go that path.
There is quite a number of players who crave for such games and really dig them + are more than willing to actually pay for them
(if you haven't but care to do perhaps read Stardocks (the publisher) take on the matter and why catering to us strategy-gamers who like deep tbs games does pay off at least financially.
)
And its one of the few industries where concept-copying is viewed even with some kind of favor in the Euro-northAmerican world (legal issues of course still exist, but you might be even more fimilar with those than i am. So who am i to tell you?). As long as its not a direct copy-past but rather a similar concept.
So if you got the means
(might be given your mod
now or in the futre. Perhaps i'll find the time to try it one day. Looks very interesting...). But that's just a slight guess)
don't hesitate to spread the word about us strategy-lovers in the circles you have acess to (fantasy tbs is a very special crowd and FFH2 sets the bar quite high here. Though i wouldn't start scoff at a good try which fails to raise the bar just slightly...
And most Fantasy-tbs fans like tbs in general).
The niche of possible customers is there. Rest assured. And i doubt gamers still give much on where a game-studio is set geographically.
If the different graphical location allows for a different kind of design philosophy (like more: "when it's done" and less "get it out as soon as it is remotely possible to make some fast cash" or more "we need good gameplay and want to use + improve proven concepts + expand on them" as opposed to "we need to do something artistic, flashy and never seen before") might even turn this different geographical and / or economic framework into an decisive advantage.
