2008-09 Friday 19th, Next project announced

[Lysius]

While even a single man team can do a lot, the scope is still limited. A 10-man team can do more than 10x the work a single man could do, if communications and leadership is not a problem.

Not true. It just takes time. Have you ever heard of multi-skilled developers?

But even a multi-skilled developer only has limited time and money. If it takes him five years (or even longer) to develop a game, the techniques used are outdated and If he wants to have a good selling game, he has to start again with a new engine. Then after perhaps four years, when he is done, this engine again is outdated, ...
And in all this jears our multi-skilled developer has no income, or needs an other job that consumes valuable time.
The size of his project is limited through the amount of work he can do before his techniques used gets outdated.

Cost of living doesn't count in this matter.

Living cost is exactly what matters. You have to "buy" your developers (If you do it alone you have your living costs, so you effectively have to buy yourself). They are an essential part of the process, just as important as hardware equipment, software costs or licensing of music, artwork, an engine, etc.