From Software patched the original Dark Souls PC port to remove Games For Windows Live when that service shut down, replaced it with steam networking. This was years and years before the remaster, so they weren’t making money on it - they just up and fixed it. MMOs? A bunch of unpaid modders brought up the first WoW custom servers, and some of those were reverse engineered.

Your argument doesn’t pass the “just look and see if it’s true” test.