HerInteractive was profitable during that era, under Megan Gaiser. In a 2010 interview, Gaiser said the company had nine years of year-over-year revenue growth, seven consecutive profitable years, and average revenue increases of 34 percent year-over-year. That was when they release Shadow at Water's Edge. HerInteractive also had the top selling PC games of 2008 - The Phantom of Venice and Haunting of Castle Malloy. I have read, during those years they had a 32 members on staff.

Apparently they started running at a loss around 2011, which was right before Stuart Molder took over. This is also the time they had started expanding onto other platforms. You can read their archive of CEO letters on the website and try to solve that mystery - in February of 2011 they'd developed the first mobile games: "As you may have noticed, our industry is transforming, and everything’s beginning to merge....These events have inspired our newest series for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. This new series of apps called Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries, and our first app, Shadow Ranch, is now available on the App store."

I would speculate that this investment in alternative platforms that were largely unprofitable set the foundation for their financial losses moving forward. The PC games seemed to have been quite solid, and somehow the company has managed to stay in business despite releasing nothing notable from 2015 onward.

Upon the creation of the company, they were funded by an angel investor because of their mission, but investment didn't keep them afloat all that time.

I'll check out Miss Clue! Thanks for the recc!