All this sounds expensive. How can we know Game of Thrones won’t be canceled prematurely as some previous HBO series?
We cannot, but it has been indicated that HBO regrets canceling some of their shows. More specifically, they have not taken DVD and other sales (which created profit in the long run) into account when calculating the bottom line. This means HBO will give the new series more time to justify the investment, and we can hope Game of Thrones runs longer than the two seasons we got of Rome, for example.