I feel like the true story is that the full time development staff were laid off.
They then and went quietly contracted out all the rest of development after the beta launch flopped.
I wouldn't be surprised if all the core development team isn't working other jobs, on the promise of shares once the game is "fully" launched.
I mean current development trends have all the hallmarks of a team doing this in the evenings/weekends after their jobs that pay the bills.
Really pretty sad if you think about it.