lol i don't know why you personally aren't making money but to bash a niche like gaming is lol, I guarantee there are at least 10 people on this board doing 4-5 figures daily with game.
What do you mean by completely shut down? Did your ad CTR drop(did you create new ones), did the campaign stop converting(did you try really dialing in the demo/day-parting/testing across multiple networks), did the advertiser shut down(find a similar offer with similar conversions) or is there another reason?
ran retrogamer i believe it was before last summer...spring time ...dealt with a few diff networks...i do think am's don't give a shit. i think some do but at the end of the day, they don't care.
ran into a problem with the offer to which it's extent i won't go into...i did have to troubleshoot it myself to figure out it was redirecting to a non offer page without us knowing. figured out it wasn't compatible with certain computers/browsers. i do believe for about the 3 week period when the offer made noise, everyone jumped on it...thus causing the cap...just on and on and on....i was working with someone else with these offers...he decided to jump ship and go into something else which i agreed but disagreed...one guy would say, stick it out, he would say, let's bail ship etc...just a bunch of bullshit all around.
when smiley's came around and every fucking am was out there pushing msn messenger with smiley offers....we were the only ones to put out skype with smiley offers...made decent coin but again, short lived.
i've learned over the years...i have to work for that income...it's why so many amercians do. it's those that have the knowledge, resources and are in that right situation that can make something of this. not everyone can make money doing this.
you can be 16 and banking if you knew what offer to run, where to run and have a proper lander, when to turn it on and off etc ...
to say if you work hard and no luck is involved is just fooling yourself. like in golf...you put the practice time in, you live it, breathe it, eat golf and when your out there playing.....60% skill, 40% luck. it's how the wind blows or how the ball rolls.