I never heard someone from team ion promising profitability, especially not in short term. Ofcourse everybody wishes so. Thing I did hear directly is that they want to be longterm (vs rushing, hyping and pumping).
I would say that complying with the rules would be preferrable. I know the team is keen on rules at least in the area where the company is based. I know too little to discuss on it. Hopefully others can as it is a very relevant subject to the project indeed, and to all crypto. I think you should take into account how other succesfull projects handled this
I was referring to WildShark, who is obviously a clown but sadly at the same time the most vocal ionomy representative here and is pumping like there is no tomorrow.
I don't think being registered offshore is a legitimate way to bypass AML or securities laws. Long story short, in the US you can offer securities only to "accredited investors" (if you remember Garza's e-mails he was desperately trying to become one but didn't meet the assets/income requirements) or you have to go through a shitload of disclosures if you want to offer it to the general public. And AML requirements are a whole new can of worms.
As for other projects, I would guess that they fall into three major categories - carefully avoid any contact with fiat and don't mention "investment" anywhere; naively try to comply with all rules and get buried in paperwork; or just wing it and hope for the best. We all know how that last one works out :-)
I think I need to mention that I'm not a lawyer even if I may seem to be playing one on the intertubes.
Would be great to have an entity that is legally authorized to process the transaction without every game dev having to go thru that process and do all the same validations on their customers.....