I think it's important to keep some things in mind here.
First, competitive play is something the minority of people do.  Most people that play card games do so at their kitchen table with friends.  While I understand that competitive play is an important component to success of a collectable card game (CCG, LCG or other), the reality is that this is not the format and standard by which the vast majority of players will experience the game.
The second thing is the cost .  These games are not sold outside of the US for 15 bucks for a cycle pack for example.  In Sweden for example to buy the entire collection it would cost you about 12,000 crowns if you buy it at the cheapest online outlet and that is a reduced priced compared to brick and mortar shops.  12,000 crowns is about 1,200 dollars, a lot in any country.
Finally I think the key issue isn't maintenance cost but getting into it cost.  Today if you want to play Legend of the Five Rings, lets assume your cost of 610 dollars.  How many people do you know that have 610 dollars to get into a card game?  That cost goes up each month and it will be less and less likely as time goes on to get into the game.
And as pointed out, eventually you start running into availability issues as well thanks to the way the game is staggered into cycles, so even if you have 610 dollars, it's unlikely you would be able to find everything.  
I get what your saying, but its really now quite that black and white and I think the devil is in the details here and its here where a lot of these games actually do run into trouble.  
 

I think this could be a quote on the box because I think most TI fans kind of fall into this category.
Its without question the biggest dust collector on my shelf, while simultaneously I fully intend to be buried with it. 

So recently there has been several online shops that have put up a Twilight Imperium expansion on pre-order yet there has been no official announcement from Fantasy Flight Games about it.
The expansion is called Prophecy of Kings, its listed at about 100 bucks in several places.
Since its not April 1st,  has anyone heard any official confirmation of this product anywhere?

So recently there has been several online shops that have put up a Twilight Imperium expansion on pre-order yet there has been no official announcement from Fantasy Flight Games about it.
The expansion is called Prophecy of Kings, its listed at about 100 bucks in several places.
Since its not April 1st,  has anyone heard any official confirmation of this product anywhere?

Yeah don't doubt it, if they made an expansion, I would be first in line for it no matter what it is.  
For me personally if Fantasy Flight Games wants to do something for the fans, the loyalist that have been playing this game for decades.  I vote for a collectors edition like they did for War of the Ring.  I would hand over my first born guilt free for that, he's 15, he's had a good run, I'll miss him, but definitely worth it.
 

Yeah don't doubt it, if they made an expansion, I would be first in line for it no matter what it is.  
For me personally if Fantasy Flight Games wants to do something for the fans, the loyalist that have been playing this game for decades.  I vote for a collectors edition like they did for War of the Ring.  I would hand over my first born guilt free for that, he's 15, he's had a good run, I'll miss him, but definitely worth it.
 

Hey Guys
I recently started up a new Lord of the Rings Saga campaign and realized that I'm actually still hosting some community produced resources on my servers, but I'm not sure how many people are even aware of it.  So for the record.
gamersdungeon.net (http://www.gamersdungeon.net/) is a gaming blog I write for, its been around for quite a few years and covers a wide range of gaming reviews, opinion articles and various strategy guides, stuff like that.  Mostly board games but there is a lot of RPG, PC game and other articles.  It's kind of a mish-mash but included as part of the site is a Lord of the Rings card game section.
The prize here is the Lord of the Rings LCG companion (http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/) which has been maintained very well, it includes a lot of great information on the various expansions, ratings, FAQ information , rules for everything, glossaries.  Its very well done.
We also host the Lord of the Rings LCG Campaign Log tool (http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/campaignlog/) .  This is just a nice tool to manage/track your Saga campaigns.
I just wanted to remind everyone that this resource is still around and available, its humble creators should come forth and say hello as well!
 

Hey Guys
I recently started up a new Lord of the Rings Saga campaign and realized that I'm actually still hosting some community produced resources on my servers, but I'm not sure how many people are even aware of it.  So for the record.
gamersdungeon.net (http://www.gamersdungeon.net/) is a gaming blog I write for, its been around for quite a few years and covers a wide range of gaming reviews, opinion articles and various strategy guides, stuff like that.  Mostly board games but there is a lot of RPG, PC game and other articles.  It's kind of a mish-mash but included as part of the site is a Lord of the Rings card game section.
The prize here is the Lord of the Rings LCG companion (http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/) which has been maintained very well, it includes a lot of great information on the various expansions, ratings, FAQ information , rules for everything, glossaries.  Its very well done.
We also host the Lord of the Rings LCG Campaign Log tool (http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/campaignlog/) .  This is just a nice tool to manage/track your Saga campaigns.
I just wanted to remind everyone that this resource is still around and available, its humble creators should come forth and say hello as well!
 

Hey Guys
I recently started up a new Lord of the Rings Saga campaign and realized that I'm actually still hosting some community produced resources on my servers, but I'm not sure how many people are even aware of it.  So for the record.
gamersdungeon.net (http://www.gamersdungeon.net/) is a gaming blog I write for, its been around for quite a few years and covers a wide range of gaming reviews, opinion articles and various strategy guides, stuff like that.  Mostly board games but there is a lot of RPG, PC game and other articles.  It's kind of a mish-mash but included as part of the site is a Lord of the Rings card game section.
The prize here is the Lord of the Rings LCG companion (http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/) which has been maintained very well, it includes a lot of great information on the various expansions, ratings, FAQ information , rules for everything, glossaries.  Its very well done.
We also host the Lord of the Rings LCG Campaign Log tool (http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/campaignlog/) .  This is just a nice tool to manage/track your Saga campaigns.
I just wanted to remind everyone that this resource is still around and available, its humble creators should come forth and say hello as well!
 

Hey Guys
I recently started up a new Lord of the Rings Saga campaign and realized that I'm actually still hosting some community produced resources on my servers, but I'm not sure how many people are even aware of it.  So for the record.
gamersdungeon.net (http://www.gamersdungeon.net/) is a gaming blog I write for, its been around for quite a few years and covers a wide range of gaming reviews, opinion articles and various strategy guides, stuff like that.  Mostly board games but there is a lot of RPG, PC game and other articles.  It's kind of a mish-mash but included as part of the site is a Lord of the Rings card game section.
The prize here is the Lord of the Rings LCG companion (http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/) which has been maintained very well, it includes a lot of great information on the various expansions, ratings, FAQ information , rules for everything, glossaries.  Its very well done.
We also host the Lord of the Rings LCG Campaign Log tool (http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/campaignlog/) .  This is just a nice tool to manage/track your Saga campaigns.
I just wanted to remind everyone that this resource is still around and available, its humble creators should come forth and say hello as well!
 

Hey Guys
I recently started up a new Lord of the Rings Saga campaign and realized that I'm actually still hosting some community produced resources on my servers, but I'm not sure how many people are even aware of it.  So for the record.
gamersdungeon.net (http://www.gamersdungeon.net/) is a gaming blog I write for, its been around for quite a few years and covers a wide range of gaming reviews, opinion articles and various strategy guides, stuff like that.  Mostly board games but there is a lot of RPG, PC game and other articles.  It's kind of a mish-mash but included as part of the site is a Lord of the Rings card game section.
The prize here is the Lord of the Rings LCG companion (http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/) which has been maintained very well, it includes a lot of great information on the various expansions, ratings, FAQ information , rules for everything, glossaries.  Its very well done.
We also host the Lord of the Rings LCG Campaign Log tool (http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/campaignlog/) .  This is just a nice tool to manage/track your Saga campaigns.
I just wanted to remind everyone that this resource is still around and available, its humble creators should come forth and say hello as well!
 

Hey Guys
I recently started up a new Lord of the Rings Saga campaign and realized that I'm actually still hosting some community produced resources on my servers, but I'm not sure how many people are even aware of it.  So for the record.
gamersdungeon.net (http://www.gamersdungeon.net/) is a gaming blog I write for, its been around for quite a few years and covers a wide range of gaming reviews, opinion articles and various strategy guides, stuff like that.  Mostly board games but there is a lot of RPG, PC game and other articles.  It's kind of a mish-mash but included as part of the site is a Lord of the Rings card game section.
The prize here is the Lord of the Rings LCG companion (http://lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/) which has been maintained very well, it includes a lot of great information on the various expansions, ratings, FAQ information , rules for everything, glossaries.  Its very well done.
We also host the Lord of the Rings LCG Campaign Log tool (http://www.lotr-lcg-quest-companion.gamersdungeon.net/campaignlog/) .  This is just a nice tool to manage/track your Saga campaigns.
I just wanted to remind everyone that this resource is still around and available, its humble creators should come forth and say hello as well!
 

Agreed.  

Its difficult to put into words, but I think the short answer is that Lord of the Rings is a unique deck building game in that unlike almost all deck building games in that you don't build a deck to beat the game or beat your opponent, you instead build a deck to solve the current puzzle (quest).
Now grant it there are ways with sufficient card pool to create niche decks that can become the sort of "ultimate deck" that is powerful enough to beat most quests in the game but those are so very specific and there really are very few of them, most of which leverage min/maxing and poorly designed cards with a few assumptions (like owning 2 core sets for example).
Generally this is a game of solving a puzzle via deck building and most of the problems described by the OP are not "all quests" problems, but very specific quests.  For example most quests do now have Location heavy encounter decks, some do, but most don't.  Most encounter decks don't rely on the Doom mechanic, same goes with enemy design.  
Each quest is unique and requires a unique deck(s) to beat it and the challenge of the game is building that deck for that quest.  For the next quest you will likely again have to alter your deck.  
I think the mindset of "build one deck to beat them all" is a kind of carry over from most deck building games and a attribute/attitude players bring over in this game which ultimately leads to disappointment.   If however you recognize how Lord of the Rings is different and that the challenge is to build decks to beat specific quests, if you embrace that concept, then the game opens up to you and a lot of the design starts to make a lot more sense.
A good example is Conflict at The Carrock.  Most new players really struggle with this quest because up until you hit it, most of the quests leading up to it in that series don't really require anything particularly specific as far as design or strategy goes.  Most halfway decent decks will do.  Conflict At The Carrock is the first time when you must adjust your deck for a very specific challenge and most players that figure out can eventually beat the quest 100% of the time even on nightmare because there is a puzzle to solve here and once solved a quest that seemed impossible to beat becomes fairly easy to defeat consistently.
From Carrock on, this is how the game challenges you.  Now of course there are some quests that really are super tough and you might not be able to find a solution to the puzzle with your current card pool. I dont think that is intentional but it does happen (depending on how you collect).  As an owner of almost the entire collecting I have many quests I have never beaten but I know there is a solution to those puzzles, I just havent found it and I have always intentionally avoided seeking out the answer online.  The game stays fresh and interesting for me knowing that there are still challenges waiting for me in my collection.

Its worth pointing out as well that this concept of "elimination" as a player goal and it being opposed to winning the game (going for the win strategy) is actually really common in Euro games.  
Just off the top of my head, Through The Ages, Ticket to Ride, Terra-forming Mars, Great Western Trail, 7 Wonders, even CamelUp.  Any one of those games if you don't care about winning and you just want to make sure someone at the table loses, its super simple to do it.  
This idea of throwing the game to make sure someone at the table loses the game is possible in I would say the overwhelming majority of all games.  The fact that it can also be done in Twilight Imperium is hardly even worth discussion, if someone at your table plays to lose and is just there to ruin someone elses fun, your problem isn't the game, its your gaming group.

Its worth pointing out as well that this concept of "elimination" as a player goal and it being opposed to winning the game (going for the win strategy) is actually really common in Euro games.  
Just off the top of my head, Through The Ages, Ticket to Ride, Terra-forming Mars, Great Western Trail, 7 Wonders, even CamelUp.  Any one of those games if you don't care about winning and you just want to make sure someone at the table loses, its super simple to do it.  
This idea of throwing the game to make sure someone at the table loses the game is possible in I would say the overwhelming majority of all games.  The fact that it can also be done in Twilight Imperium is hardly even worth discussion, if someone at your table plays to lose and is just there to ruin someone elses fun, your problem isn't the game, its your gaming group.

I'm not suggesting that LCG model is more profitable, I'm saying that LCG are more stable.  You consider an LCG a failure that lasted for 7 years.  A **** game it may very well have been and despite that it has outlasted or lasted as long as the vast majority of the CCG games on your list you consider to be successes.
It's worth noting however all of the CCG's that failed to make it past the 1, 2 or 3 year mark that failed.  Can you name any LCG that didn't last at least 5 years?  I can't think of a single one.
The reason the LCG market is more stable and the games last is because there are no external factors that control the games economics.  You can release a core set, identify who your player base is and how many of them their are and then release expansions according to your market.  There are no 3rd party markets affecting the games sales.
Star Wars LCG may very well have been a **** game (I actually tend to agree with you), but it had an audience, there were people that loved it, collected it and played it and they did so for 7 years.  As long as their was a community to support it, the game continued.  It did not fail, the community simply lost interest and when they did the game was discontinued and there were no tears cried over the matter other then the trolls who never actually played the game that just love complaining about everything.  The Star Wars LCG community was done with the game, there was no reason for FFG to continue with it.
Meanwhile you have games like Destiny that barely survived 3 years which is actually better than average for a CCG and I would point out that it too had the Star Wars License.  You claim that Star Wars LCG survived on the basis of its franchise, why didn't Destiny?  Frankly I think Destiny was objectively a much better game then Star Wars LCG ever was, yet it still failed miserably as a game.  Yet there are lots of people that still want to play it and want it to continue, yet its died despite them.  The reason is fairly simple, it was a CCG.  CCG's can't simply be maintained for a niche community that likes the game, they need to be mass market success to be success, else they are failures.  There is no middle ground with CCG's which is why so many of them are failures.  Had it been an LCG, we wouldn't be having this conversation and Destiny would only be getting started as a game with many years of expansions ahead of it. 
That's the reality of the CCG and LCG markets.  People don't want to hear it because CCG's are usually supported by much larger communities, but these communities are frivolous and they circumvent the business model with 3rd party markets, the direct cause for a game that should really otherwise be a success.   There really is no logical reason why Destiny was canceled, its a successful game with a community behind it that wants it to continue but because its a CCG and as a result requires a much bigger market to support it, it failed despite itself.
 

To be honest with you, not that I would pass on anything ever made for TI, but frankly its kind of bloated already in particular if you own both TI3 and TI4 which at this point I would imagine most current TI players probably do.
To me TI4 was a really good compromise that took all of the best parts of TI3 and infused them into a single experience with an appropriate heavy hand of streamlining.  In a lot of ways its the perfect version of the game.  Many of the expansion concept that have been explored in past edition and ultimately eliminated from the current version were cut for pretty good reason.
For example the 7-8 player game.  Complete and utter nightmare.  I did it once and frankly given a choice between a swift kick in the nuts and a 8 player game, I would take the swift kick.  Just an awful experience which effectively took what is already one of the longest games imaginable and extends it by 3 hours with downtimes that could last in excess of an hour towards end game play.  
More systems really wouldn't change much in the game, there is already a metric ton of dynamics in the galaxy creation, I mean sure it might be interesting to have some new red tiles for example or perhaps some alternative planet systems but I don't really see that as something missing from the game.
The game already has 17 factions.  I have been playing this game for a bloody decade and there are still factions I have never played. Plus the interaction of the factions is already so immensely complex I don't see how adding more would really improve the game in anyway.  It's already a bit much.
Distant Suns to, I mean I have added them from Ti3 into Ti4 and frankly it really doesn't do much to improve the game in anyway, what the effect really boils down to is that the game is slower which with TI, anything that makes the game slower is bad.  Notably most of the expansion content that was cut from TI4 where very specifically things that made the game slower.
I mean I'm not opposing an expansion, I would certainly buy it, but I don't really see anything that is missing in the game, quite to the contrary, there is too much of it as it is. 

I think it's important to keep some things in mind here.
First, competitive play is something the minority of people do.  Most people that play card games do so at their kitchen table with friends.  While I understand that competitive play is an important component to success of a collectable card game (CCG, LCG or other), the reality is that this is not the format and standard by which the vast majority of players will experience the game.
The second thing is the cost .  These games are not sold outside of the US for 15 bucks for a cycle pack for example.  In Sweden for example to buy the entire collection it would cost you about 12,000 crowns if you buy it at the cheapest online outlet and that is a reduced priced compared to brick and mortar shops.  12,000 crowns is about 1,200 dollars, a lot in any country.
Finally I think the key issue isn't maintenance cost but getting into it cost.  Today if you want to play Legend of the Five Rings, lets assume your cost of 610 dollars.  How many people do you know that have 610 dollars to get into a card game?  That cost goes up each month and it will be less and less likely as time goes on to get into the game.
And as pointed out, eventually you start running into availability issues as well thanks to the way the game is staggered into cycles, so even if you have 610 dollars, it's unlikely you would be able to find everything.  
I get what your saying, but its really now quite that black and white and I think the devil is in the details here and its here where a lot of these games actually do run into trouble.  
 

I think it's important to keep some things in mind here.
First, competitive play is something the minority of people do.  Most people that play card games do so at their kitchen table with friends.  While I understand that competitive play is an important component to success of a collectable card game (CCG, LCG or other), the reality is that this is not the format and standard by which the vast majority of players will experience the game.
The second thing is the cost .  These games are not sold outside of the US for 15 bucks for a cycle pack for example.  In Sweden for example to buy the entire collection it would cost you about 12,000 crowns if you buy it at the cheapest online outlet and that is a reduced priced compared to brick and mortar shops.  12,000 crowns is about 1,200 dollars, a lot in any country.
Finally I think the key issue isn't maintenance cost but getting into it cost.  Today if you want to play Legend of the Five Rings, lets assume your cost of 610 dollars.  How many people do you know that have 610 dollars to get into a card game?  That cost goes up each month and it will be less and less likely as time goes on to get into the game.
And as pointed out, eventually you start running into availability issues as well thanks to the way the game is staggered into cycles, so even if you have 610 dollars, it's unlikely you would be able to find everything.  
I get what your saying, but its really now quite that black and white and I think the devil is in the details here and its here where a lot of these games actually do run into trouble.  
 

Certainly, it's not a perfect science, but with LCG's you know with 100% certainty that you are not going to sell more Expansion X, then you sold core sets.  You have some basis on which to do the math.  
I do think there are problems in the LCG model as well.  One of them is that they make too much stuff too fast.
For example I'm a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, but frankly the rate at which the games expansions were released was so fast that it became like a second mortgage payment to keep up.  I think one of the mistakes FFG keeps making with their LCG's is that they are pushing expansions at too fast a rate and its particularly bad with L5R where they didnt even stagger the cycles, releasing them all at once.  I got the sense I fell behind almost immediately and stopped collecting all together because I was facing a few hundred bucks overhead to get caught up and it just pissed me off.
FFG's version of the LCG model needs some work.  I always felt it would be better if they stopped with the "cycle" nonsense and just did box set expansions at a staggered enough rate so that you could keep up easier. 
Card games have also become waaay to expensive and its caused a saturation in the market.  You can't expect people to drop 100 bucks every couple of months to keep up with a card game.  They might do it for the first couple of months, but eventually the hype and novelty wears off and people stop buying. 
L5R is a good example.  The game is less than 2 years old and there is already over 1,000 dollars worth of stuff to buy to get caught up.   Its too much too fast, it's why they have overstock and I don't believe it's because they did the math wrong, I think they gambled on purpose.  I know barely anything about the business and I could have told you that if they had 1,000 dollars worth of stuff available before the 2nd year that the game would fail miserably.  It doesn't matter how good it was, NO GAME is going to sell that, not even Magic The Gathering.

Things are rarely black and white, I'm sure production cost of the dice played its part, but production issues are almost always the result of incorrect forecasting.  If you know how many people are going to buy a product, it doesn't matter what you are making there are always solutions to production issues.  I think the issue for them was more likely that they couldn't accurately predict who and how often people would buy their game and this is one of the most common problems and reasons why CCG's fail. 
Prospecting is one of the key issues all collectable games face because you are selling "random" to people and there is no telling how much of that "random" they are going to buy.  There is no way to predict how important the 3rd party market becomes, how the costs of the 3rd party market will affect your direct sales, how much faith your brick and mortar stores will have in the product.  There are all sorts of challenges to trying to get a CCG off the ground and it's why the model was abandoned by FFG in the first place and they switched to making LCG's.  
This is the weird thing with Destiny.  Everything that transpired is exactly why they started making LCG, I don't understand why, having already learned those lessons the hard way, they would risk their business on it given that they have a model (LCG's) that have a proven track record.  The vast majority of their LCG have been very successful, why they would suddenly try to get into the CCG market where they have always had problems in the past is beyond me.

I'm not suggesting that LCG model is more profitable, I'm saying that LCG are more stable.  You consider an LCG a failure that lasted for 7 years.  A **** game it may very well have been and despite that it has outlasted or lasted as long as the vast majority of the CCG games on your list you consider to be successes.
It's worth noting however all of the CCG's that failed to make it past the 1, 2 or 3 year mark that failed.  Can you name any LCG that didn't last at least 5 years?  I can't think of a single one.
The reason the LCG market is more stable and the games last is because there are no external factors that control the games economics.  You can release a core set, identify who your player base is and how many of them their are and then release expansions according to your market.  There are no 3rd party markets affecting the games sales.
Star Wars LCG may very well have been a **** game (I actually tend to agree with you), but it had an audience, there were people that loved it, collected it and played it and they did so for 7 years.  As long as their was a community to support it, the game continued.  It did not fail, the community simply lost interest and when they did the game was discontinued and there were no tears cried over the matter other then the trolls who never actually played the game that just love complaining about everything.  The Star Wars LCG community was done with the game, there was no reason for FFG to continue with it.
Meanwhile you have games like Destiny that barely survived 3 years which is actually better than average for a CCG and I would point out that it too had the Star Wars License.  You claim that Star Wars LCG survived on the basis of its franchise, why didn't Destiny?  Frankly I think Destiny was objectively a much better game then Star Wars LCG ever was, yet it still failed miserably as a game.  Yet there are lots of people that still want to play it and want it to continue, yet its died despite them.  The reason is fairly simple, it was a CCG.  CCG's can't simply be maintained for a niche community that likes the game, they need to be mass market success to be success, else they are failures.  There is no middle ground with CCG's which is why so many of them are failures.  Had it been an LCG, we wouldn't be having this conversation and Destiny would only be getting started as a game with many years of expansions ahead of it. 
That's the reality of the CCG and LCG markets.  People don't want to hear it because CCG's are usually supported by much larger communities, but these communities are frivolous and they circumvent the business model with 3rd party markets, the direct cause for a game that should really otherwise be a success.   There really is no logical reason why Destiny was canceled, its a successful game with a community behind it that wants it to continue but because its a CCG and as a result requires a much bigger market to support it, it failed despite itself.
 

Well Warhammer Invasion lasted from 09 to 13, that is just about five years.
Doomtown Reloaded is a revitalization of a game that already had a 3 year run, now it's taking a second go at it.  Which really just illustrates that even despite really poor business practices and decisions, fans keep it alive and demand its return.  Even as a failure, it finds a way back to the market.

I think its telling that you use Star Wars LCG as an example of a failure when it outlasted most of the games on that list you consider successes.  
I hate to be the one to tell you but Highlander, Middle Earth, Vs. System, Star Wars CCG and Lord of the Rings TCG.. none of those out lasted Star Wars LCG, some of those didn't actually make it past the five year mark and almost all of them bankrupt the companies who ran the games.
Like I said, there are exceptions.  Pokemon, Yo-Gi-Oh and DragonBall Z are good examples, but its worth noting that without the Asian market all of these games would have failed in their first year, they live and die on those markets.
 
You also list games like L5R which notably were run by companies that struggled financially their entire run.
Magic The Gathering remains one of the few true success stories in CCG's.  A game run successfully for decades that didn't bankrupt the company trying to run it.

I think its telling that you use Star Wars LCG as an example of a failure when it outlasted most of the games on that list you consider successes.  
I hate to be the one to tell you but Highlander, Middle Earth, Vs. System, Star Wars CCG and Lord of the Rings TCG.. none of those out lasted Star Wars LCG, some of those didn't actually make it past the five year mark and almost all of them bankrupt the companies who ran the games.
Like I said, there are exceptions.  Pokemon, Yo-Gi-Oh and DragonBall Z are good examples, but its worth noting that without the Asian market all of these games would have failed in their first year, they live and die on those markets.
 
You also list games like L5R which notably were run by companies that struggled financially their entire run.
Magic The Gathering remains one of the few true success stories in CCG's.  A game run successfully for decades that didn't bankrupt the company trying to run it.