Money may not be a huge factor in other genres, but in the MMO genre money is darn near everything.

I'd definitely include that as a development cost, as it was a cost directly tied to the creation and viability of the game as a product. Without the licensing fee, the E.T. game would have been an illegal turd instead of just a turd.

Marketing for a game in comparison to, let's say a film, are two different beasts. They need to sell the general consumer on an item that they will pay $60 for, need a system to play it on and justify the time dedicated to play the game (which may be for hours).

It's probably also why everybody panics about Nintendo except Nintendo.