I’d say that the GoT-game did pretty well considering where the tv-series was at that time of that kickstarter.
It might have done better if they had launched when the series was at maximum mainstream popularity instead of when it did.

(never mind that there already was a boardgame that focussed on the diplomacy/intrigue aspect of the series)

OTOH … I think the media industry has yet to understand how (board)games can help sell an IP (when handled with care).
They barely understand how to make good (video)game cross-overs/tie-ins as is.
Boardgames have yet to go beyond the ‘monopoly’-clone threshold as far as licensing deals appear to be done (Star Wars being the one exception).

And I kind of doubt that 5 times kickstarter target can ever be considered ‘doing bad’.
That’s like the video game industry classifying games as failures/’not meeting expectations’ when the sales figures for a titles don’t match that of the top 3 in the industry when realisticly speaking they ought to been happy with half of their actual sales.

ASOIF may not be a traditional mass battle game, but (IMHO) it may represent the format that manages to attract the most new gamers to the genre.

9th age is missing only one basic ingredient : the sales pitch that attracts new blood to the genre.

Games don’t sell because the mechanics are perfect.
They sell because they either have an unique selling point that makes them irresistable to new players or they successfully target an unexplored target audience (like Nintendo did for game consoles with the Wii).