EA making games for MegaDrive/Genesis doesn’t cost Sega any money. You using the api without ever seeing any ads will actively cost Meta money. Not the same thing.
I agree that it's not the same thing, and I don't know offhand about the MegaDrive/Genesis in particular, but game consoles have often been sold at a loss with profit made on sale of games. If that was true for Sega at the time, anyone EA making games that motivate sales of Sega consoles but no purchase of Sega (or Sega-licensed) games would absolutely be costing Sega money.
I make no particular comment, here, on whether we should be defending that business model.
