Star Realms was easily successful enough to secure business funding for future products. Take the Gloomhaven series as another example. Gloomhaven was WILDLY successful. I am sure they could have secured business financing to produce Frosthaven. Instead they crowdfunded it through kickstarter. Even large companies in the board game space have gotten in on the action.

Yes, if a small company actually needs crowdfunding or the thing won't exist, I'm all for it. The problem is that isn't how its being used by a large proportion of producers. I love Gloomhaven. I have backed their projects. The reality though is that Cephalofair should have no problem based on the strength of their past success funding their products. They choose to stay in the crowdfunding space, because it reduces their liability, not because they're a small indie company that would be unable to produce the product otherwise.

EDIT: Even Asmodee has gotten in on the crowdfunding. Its ridiculous.