LOW PUBLIC INTEREST. QUIT OR CARRYON

In the end, I think this is a question you'll have to answer yourself. Are you making the game for it to become highly recognized and popular? Or are you making it because you think it's a game that should exist? Your own motives and feelings are what's important here.

That. If your game's good, it should gain an audience, but even if it doesn't (because there are some games which are criminally underrated), then just make another game and keep moving on. But often, just make a game because you want to make something that's fun to play, not something that'll be a "hit". If you do so, you're only setting yourself up for failure (in general).

Yeah, unity hit the nail on the head. I would only add that, from what I've read, it sounds like you need more info from your testers. "Fun" doesn't cut it when you're trying to develop and improve a game. Try and press them for more details. It could be that your games are just so rough around the edges that people don't really want to play them, even if the gameplay itself is fun.

If you're developing a commercial game, that's a different story. But if you're not, then develop the game you want to develop. The popularity will come in time.

I'm not sure about your particular situation, but one tried and true method I learned is to provoke discussion from your subs. They are your lifeblood, after all, so try and get them talking about your game. No, I'm not saying you should try and make them advertise for you, but strengthening your bond with your fanbase is the surest way to make your game stand out from the thousands of other games on this site and others. Plus, by talking to your subs, they feel like they are important enough to you and your game that they will want to try to bring others in.

... That last paragraph made me sound like a calculating manipulator. Oh, man. Well, you know what I'm getting at, right?

It also helps if a developer is fairly active ( or a well-known dev ) in the community to promote interest for their game. Addit wrote a really excellent article on this late last year. Posting updates ( like blogs, images or media ) could generate interest as well. Just make the blogs informative and interesting to read. No-one wants to read a 1 sentence blog about a minor tweak here and there.

But Nova and uni gave some really helpful advice already. Just adding my two cents. =)

Well, if you're aiming for a game that would garner public interest, you're going to have to make some helpful blogs, such as: "You're all too shitty to understand how great I am!". You could start a kickstarter for it, and promise way more than you can deliver. It also helps if you have a page for the game on every social media site, ever where you post daily every single thing you do, or if you didn't do anything on the game that day, post about how shitty other games are.

For what it's worth, this site is developer-focused. A lot of us are focused on talking about gamedev, but don't always have time to play a lot of games. Even if we do, we're going to approach it from a different angle from the average player.

When you're ready, you might try sending your game to more player-focused sites! Also, keep in mind that popularity waxes and wanes, and is also a bit of a snowball - it takes a long time (maybe several games!) to get it rolling. But if you keep at it for a while, you may very well build a loyal fanbase.

The beauty of art gives it intrinsic value even if no one ever sees it.

That said, lack of public interest is almost always a marketing problem, not a game problem. Your game's quality determines the cap on the maximum amount of public interest you can get, but there's not a direct correlation between public interest and quality. You'll know when you hit the cap, because everyone will be discussing how bad the game is instead of ignoring it.

author=StarSkipp
One of the main reasons I barely post on the forums or even make game updates these days is simply because I feel like the invisible kid in school again.

That's dumb. Your problem is no one knows who you are, so your solution is to hide? Let me know if that strategy works out. In the meantime I'll be over here with the fourth-highest post count on the site, constantly arguing about game design every single day, which I think advertises my games far better than I could personally do any other way.

author=StarSkipp
And when people do respond it's usually "Oh that's not how you Gam Mak! You so stoopid StarSkipp!" and then they go post in topics about battle formulas and systemics for the next five pages.

Uh, that's because that's the whole point of a game design forum? To give advice and criticism and debate aspects of game design and help each-other improve. Why are you even here if that's not what you want? Why are you even making games if you don't care how good they are and are uninterested in making them better?

If you want to have more attention for your work, you really have to become an attention whore. Don't sit back and hope senpai notices you: go out into the wider internet and spam the shit out of your stuff anywhere it's vaguely relevant. Do a lot of things, and post them all up everywhere. The only way you will get eyeballs is if you go to where the eyeballs are and shake your work in front of them, preferably while jumping up and down and yelling, "HEY LOOK! HERE IS A THING! LOOK! LOOK AT THE THING!"

(Alternately, make friends with people who already have regular eyeball access and get them to do the advertising for you.)

Being a generally active user is a definite boost here, because people will see your name attached to the game and think, "Oh, I know that guy! Let's see what kind of output they have."

Sorry. You made it sound like you just didn't like hearing that your battle formulas were not perfect, but I guess that's not how you meant it.

I worded the first half of my post like an aggressive dick, but I feel like "post lots, be a personality" is legitimately good advice for people who are concerned that their games have low public interest. Better advice would possibly be to learn about marketing from an online class or something? But ain't nobody got time fo dat.

You could also change your game's title to something like Pom Gets Some Wifi or Pom Gets His Wifi or Pom Gets Wifi: The Game, I feel like that would get you a lot of downloads

My next game: Pom-Pom Gets Wii-U