jamyskis: You might be looking for that experience, but statistically, it's not a genre that many actively seek out. It's actually logical that you developed those specific games because you like that genre (conversely, I'm a fan of retro-styled platformers, which is what
I'm developing right now, albeit at a snail's pace), but it is still a remarkably niche type of game.
Even the highly-publicised, highish-budget Vanishing of Ethan Carter struggled to get past 60,000 sales in its first month, and that had a passing wind in the form of media coverage and very strong visuals. Short, narrative-focused 'experiences' are not the sort of thing you should be developing to make a living on. The fact that you have succeeded is a miracle in its own right. That's not to denigrate (or praise) the quality of your work. It's a simple fact that you've been lucky in doing something that very few others manage.
And you should bear in mind that very few gamers are fixated on singular genres. Many may only buy games with very low prices, others still may only buy AAA games, but even the one-track CoD mind will vary into other territories such as racing or football.
Of course most gamers aren't just fixated on one genre, but my point is that it doesn't matter whether Super Meat Boy provides more hours of playtime than The Moon Sliver... it doesn't provide the same experience, so the value proposition doesn't matter. If you want something like The Moon Sliver, buying Super Meat Boy won't provide that.
And even if there isn't a huge market for them (which I don't agree with, but that's a different discussion), I don't think it actually matters that much from a business perspective. Since the lifetime of a story-focused game is so short, fans of those games don't get over-saturated with similar titles. Consider DOTAs and MMOs. In the past, it was impossible for any MMO to make any money, because MMO fans were all too busy with World fo Warcraft. Similarly, the current DOTA scene is basically dominated by only 3 games, and lesser titles have very little chance of survival. I'm sure a lot of you have passed up lesser-known RPGs because you're time is taken up with The Witcher 3 or Dragon Age Inquisition. I know I've certainly done that with other genres. That's not something you have to worry about with narrative-focused games, because being short and so focused on their individual stories, fans don't have to pick one over the other. If their wallet permits (and of course, therein lies the rub), they can easily purchase most of the ones that release and have time to play them all.
What's more, while "walking simulators" may not be as popular as retro platformers, the genre is also far FAR less saturated. Name the quality "walking simulators." Most people will only come up with Dear Esther and Gone Home, maybe The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Proteus, maybe Only If and Mind. And frankly there aren't that many others of note. Now, name all the quality retro platformers. Yeah, there are a lot. And many times more if we broaden to just "platformers" in general. I wish you luck trying to compete in that market, because it's going to take a lot of hard work.
I mean, at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because I'm just making the games I want to see being made, and whether other numbers reflect it or not, I've been able to do fairly well up to this point. What's more, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I'm not so much married to a genre as to a philosophy: trying to tell stories through interactivity. And I think that philosophy has quite a broad appeal.
