WizKids

The company behind MageKnight, Mechwarrior (Not to be confused with Battletech), HaloClix, Heroclix, Crimson Skies, and every other Clix games. Wizkids capitalized on a very sagging gaming market by combining pre-painted miniatures, a simple gaming system with a new gaming paradigm (the clicky base which recorded damage and stats) and duplicated the marketing strategy behind Magic: The Gathering; a collectible game.

While enduring criticism from a rapidly-shrinking, but very vocal traditional pencil-and-paper fan base, Wizkids was more commercially successful than literally dozens of other traditional RPG's combined. Not since Magic had anything from the gaming industry escaped the niche market of traditional gaming.

Founded in 1999, by 2002 the company had revenue of about 33 million a year. Jordan Weisman and a few other investors sold Wizkids to TOPPS in 2003 for nearly $30 million in cash.

Other than Wizards of the Coast, any other gaming company would sell their sisters into white slavery to make that kind of money.

Topps failed to procure the kinds of Intellectual Properties that would interest the Collectible Miniatures fanbase, which Wizkids created. Topps attempted brands such as Creapy Freaks and MLB Sportsclix, which were both total failures.

Thanks to traditional developers like Mike Mulvihill, Wizkids still had more success with another new design, the constructable strategy game, also marketed as a collectible.

Topps finally killed the golden goose and shut down Wizkids in November of 2008.

Weisman, with many of the same creative team he's worked with over the years has started SMITH AND TINKER, which will most likely make him another giant pile of cash through innovation, clever concepts and excellent execution.

And then NECA bought WizKids, so they're back.