Nothing new, it has been done before. Fallout 4 and the "not paid" paid mods...
They called it the Creation Club. Modder made content including quests. Beth gives them some "inside" TEC information about how to make the mods. Bethesda sells it, but the customer KNOWS it is moder made before the purchase.
But you are right about them probably being shy about "outsiders" for now. I had not considered the recent hacking unpleasantness.
Still if they HIRED them they would not be completely an outsider. And they can be bound to a contract like any other outsource in any business even police, military and security industries do this. But yeah, devil is ALWAYS in the details. Likely much harder than it sounds.
Well, bound to contract does not mean the risks are reduced to zero. It merely means risks are "somewhat" reduced. If i am not mistaken, to this day, by far the most common method used to hack into any significant company - is someone inside of it "opening the doors". Further, it matters much what kind of contract is made. What are priorities. What's the company's actual primary goals. I don't think we can know this with complete certainty - at this time. Thing is, there are different possibilities.
I'd like to muse over just a single particular one.
I think lots folks here have seen
this one official video from CDPR. In its 1st minute, it makes this statement, quote: "... the console version of Cyberpunk 2077 did not meet the quality standard we wanted it to meet". Personally, i am much happy to hear this statement from CDPR leadership - this kind of admitting the problem is, indeed, absolutely required in such situations. But yet, in itself, it is absolutely not sufficient action to address the situation at hand.
Now, in the following rather long and detailed, but also entertaining, fan video - there is one very, very similar statement. At some point near the middle of the video, Blizzard leadership made a statement of the sort. But what if this is not the only similarity? What if for CDPR things will develop in ways similar to ways Blizzard went after the moment of time they made that kind of a statement? Who exactly can guarantee that such similarities do not exist? Certainly not me. We can only hope it ain't the case, but hardly can be sure.
P.S. And as you see, even titans fall. At times - to ashes. Note that like/dislike ratio mentioned near the end of this video - stunnning, eh? And one more other good point this video clearly demonstrates multiple times, and especially from the lively story about the auction house - even many years after, fans do not forget. They may forgive at some point, but they never, ever, forget. Some high-ranked gonks in the industry thought otherwise, some even still think otherwise now. Hopefully, CDPR has none of the kind.