[Rule35]

I think the mistake was a lack of marketing (well, and all the mistakes that led up to that). Even making the game primarily for himself wasn't a mistake, it was all he wanted to make so it was that or no game at all.

It's reasonable to build a product for a rare audience, even of just hundreds worldwide, but you can't expect a mass-market solution like the app store to find those people for you.

If I build a roguelike I'm going to advertise to 7drl people, not to the app store in general. The same with his thing, surely there's a forum or something where he hangs out with similar people who like insanely hard clickers? Approach them.