A few games manage to retain enough users to be considered profitable for many years. They are called evergreens.
Evergreens survive by being passed on. Soccer in the United Kingdom is a sport that is passed from generation to generation and has become so woven into popular culture that it will likely never fade away. On a shorter timescale, some games based on television shows (such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire) also have evergreen qualities because the show acts as a continual refresher for interest in the game. Others form such strong cultures that there is always an appetite for a refresh, like Dungeons and Dragons.
Evergreen games are very rare though, often public-domain (poker, football, chess and bingo for example) and extremely hard to just create on spec.
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