Really sounds like he needs to stop paying for art assets and start paying someone to handle marketing... While I haven't played his games, I don't think the g

Really sounds like he needs to stop paying for art assets and start paying someone to handle marketing... While I haven't played his games, I don't think the game play really matters as long as it's "good enough". Most games aren't going to be the 0.01% smash hit; you just need a regular audience that appreciates what you're doing, and enough eyeballs that are caught to say "hey, I'll gamble my $5 on something that looks fun". I think this is partly hubris. I see startups fall into the same pattern - "well it's a great product so our customers will evangelize", "if we add X feature we'll get more sales [even though no one has asked for it]", "if only it was faster, we'll get more sales [even though no one complained about latency]". No, you need to figure out who you're selling to and how to make the customer aware you even exist. It's a big pond.