Ah, I see were I got lost. I was under the impression that game companies had a strong interest in making money, with the games simply being the vehicle. If We use the assumption that their actual primary goal is to make the best possible game, than some comments make more sense.
Problem is, one can't eat a game and, for most, life has to many other options to dedicate it exclusively to making games. Things like attracting a spouse, raising a family, seeing the world outside one's tool shed, etc.. I wont even get into the fact that while good game designers may not be all that rare and people willing to live in tool sheds may also not be all that rare, good game designers willing live in tool sheds most likely are pretty rare. So we are stuck with either paying our designers a competitive salary or constantly having to tell our designers to put away the crack pipe and bang out some uber code.