Does anyone else remember the facebook version of Thunderstone? It was awesome, especially for a facebook game. You bought expansion packs for the game, each coming with new cards to be used in both a short single player campaign as well as async online play. No timers or stamina bars. No extra currencies or tricks to make you spend to keep up. Pay your money and you get your product. It was great.

Lord Of The Deck For Machina

Aaaand everybody played Farmville instead and the company who produced it went out of business. I wonder if failures like that have been an obstacle for buy-it-once expansions online, such as what people wanted for LotR LCG. I know that some games, like Ascension or Sentinels, have made this model work but maybe there’s not enough profit to interest most companies.