While it is difficult to say whether the game has been profitable or not, High Voltage being "Pleased" with sales probably means that the sales of The Conduit were in the range of Sega's expectations for them.
One thing a lot of people don’t understand about large publishers is that they have a very different mindset about the "Success" of their big budget blockbusters that are (often) based on well established IPs and developed by their best studios, and moderate budget new IPs developed by small unknown studios. The big budget games often are an order of magnitude more expensive to develop, and there is an opportunity cost associated to having the developer or IP used for that particular game.
If a small game breaks even or loses money at a rate which can easily be recovered and written off the publisher is (probably) happy to give the studio more money to develop other games as long as the developer can increase in quality or expand interest in the product they’re producing. If a studio isn’t costing the publisher too much money, they tend to be happy letting them work for long periods of time under the hope for an eventual break-out success.
Now, with High Voltage in particular, the company seems to have some talent (in particular on the technical side of things) and if they're smart they should actively be recruiting experienced people from other studios to build their talent. I could be wrong, but I think the right handful of people added to their roster would have made all the difference with a game like The Conduit.
