Every one of my examples was also extremely lucky to hit pay dirt at just the right time (3D dwarf fortress mining simulator had a number of contemporaries that could have just as easily been "the big one"; the idea of "Harvest Moon for PC" was clearly long overdue but hadn't caught on; and Factorio hit the perfect polish (heh) needed to really capture that group (similar games existed and still exist)).

None of them can you build a successful business strategy around, really, because the vast majority of games like that do NOT succeed.