Developers could make money the same way other developers make money. By having a reasonable budget.

Uncharted 1 and 2 cost $20 million each to make, and you'd have expected the same with Tomb Raider, until you hear that Square Enix had just as much of an advertising budget as game development budget. If they didn't throw away $50 million by paying off news sources, then the game would have made plenty of profit. Same with Hitman Absolution, same with Sleeping Dogs. Sleeping Dogs especially since it got a lot of hype prior to and after Square Enix purchased it.

It's just that so many of these companies have such garbage management, way too high sales expectations, etc, and that's why they're hemorrhaging money.

Other companies are just too greedy. Capcom releases Street Fighter 4 97 ttimes, then they release Street Fighter x Tekken which is the Street Fighter 4 engine, and they complain about sales when we know there was barely any money put into developing that game. They complained about Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom sales when it was the second iteration rereleased, so again, next to nothing in development costs and they got more than 250k sales on it.

As I've stated before. Developing a $20 million game now days costs far less than it did in the past(though they make less as well so it evens out,) there are less rental stores than there were in the past, and developers have more ways to make money than before with DLC added to just about every game.

Easier said than done don't you think, especially for AAA titles?  Game development was relatively simple back in the day.  You didn't need to worry about voice-acting, CGI, marketing, etc.   20 years ago an SNES game costs $50.  Today they're $10 more.  That's not a substantial increase in 2 decades.  Meanwhile, game development costs have increased exponentially due to the evolution of production values and gamer expectations.  Back in the cartridge days you may have 30 people working on a big game.  Today it's common to have a studio of 100+ people working on a single title.   A lot more goes into making an AAA title today than in years past.   I'm not saying developers aren't wasting money in certain areas, but I can also understand that they need to find other streams of revenues to offset the rising game development costs.  

that's why the industry will crash, eventually.

adapt or die