It’s all about marketing. Make 4.0 a nitty gritty Zombie Apoc game unlike the Battlefield 4 with Zombies 3.0 is. Tell me, how many 12 year olds do you regularly see playing Arma III? Probably not many right? Even if it is Call of Duty or Battlefield on steroids. Why? It’s marketed towards mature players. Even during sales, I rarely saw anybody under 15.
This community here is widely representative of the current population of Unturned, although a lot of hardcore members reside here due to not being the subreddit or Steam Discussions.
Not at all correct. It never went to waste. 3.0 and 4.0 are separate games, and those who don’t wish to pay for 4.0 or want to play 3.0 with friends will be able to do that with no issues. Nelson will still support it, just not at the usual rate.
Who ever said it was going to become a trilogy and leave others in the dust? Nelson has been doing this for YEARS (under different circumstances ofc) and it’s a learning experiment for him more than it’s a game. He’s branching out into another engine and is going to put more work into it than he did in 3.0.
[Citation needed]
So what you’re saying is Pay to own games are bad. Huh, it’s almost as if Call of Duty and Battlefield have millions of players more than Unturned despite being a paid game and still sell predictably.
It’s not like they’ve got a gun to their head with Nelson saying buy it or die. If they wish to play 3.0 instead of buying 4.0 that’s their choice.
[Citation needed] Also the majority of the Hardcore 3.0 community and most modders are on board with 4.0 being paid, albeit between 5 and 20 USD.
“hackers are more publicity”
Quake Champions was destined to be a failure. Low player counts from the get-go combined with shit publicity killed this game off faster than the fire rate on a Bulldog. Also What ‘other games’? You tossed out a single blatant example that had little work done on it to ensure a playerbase even months after launch.
And frankly, I want a paid game so that I don’t need to deal with people like you who can’t accept opposing opinions. Maybe a mature playerbase would be for the better??? 
Most kids who play this game don’t even know Unturned I or II exist or how to access it.
‘Driving them away’ From what? From a game they’re not forced to play? Let 'em play 3.0. Doesn’t bother me what version they prefer. As I’ve said before, Nelson will still work on 3.0, just not as often. He’s not ABANDONING >75% of his playerbase. He’s simply moving in a new direction and I support paying to play the game because I support Nelson instead of demanding that it be free like it’s always been.