MicroProse was stagnant for a long time and then finally went under - the resulting sale gave us, finally after so many years, a great X-Com game (with another on the way).
The death of a game studio can have a (pretty thick) silver lining. When THQ went down it auctioned off its franchises - and forced a changing of the guard for some franchises that have been stagnant.
That studio disappeared a long time ago, though. In the mid-00's it transitioned to a licensing group and only fairly recently started making games on its own again.
On the other hand, they haven't made a great game in a very long time. Even The Force Unleashed was just okay, but not stellar.