From 13.5M installs to 499 active devices

As it will be for most software, imho. There's a limited suite of extremely popular software, and some locale-specific ones. Everything else is buried in a mountain of "the rest", where it's near-impossible to discover what's worth one's time (read: so >99.99% of potential users won't bother, and stick to well-known apps).

Logical consequence is that most of "the rest" turns into abandonware.

Big Tech's algorithms behind what's promoted on app stores, commercial interests, use of AI: all just make this worse. I don't see easy solutions to this problem. But if/when found, I suspect it'll be through community-run / grassroots efforts. "Monetization" otoh just turns everything to shit...

The problem is that as far as I can tell you are in a very crowded space now. There are many similar free to play games. Some of them are definitely better. This doesn't stand out.

Still deserves more than zero downloads.

You mentioned buying ads. I have a similar issue now, launching a game, I will need to ensure a constant influx of players.

In my case the game is multiplayer though, so the value of the game goes up with more traffic (more players = more fun), and hopefully some of them will come back (LTV+) and refer their friends.

So I think it can make sense to buy traffic even for an ad supported game, depending on th circumstances. Because even if I lose money per bought visitor, the alternative (empty servers) is much worse.

In your case, there's probably some feedback loops there too: more traffic = more downloads = more reviews = higher trust + algo promotes you more. So here is the "dead game" problem seems to be extremely relevant also, and it probably takes a certain amount of "energy" to hit escape velocity.

"Local brand, rebadged hardware, ethernet port on the back, internet features in the menu"

"Keeping the download tiny was a decision, not a side effect."

God I hate the AI slop that I can instantly call out. If you MUST have your blog written by AI, please please please please implement a skill or something that does a second pass using this https://tropes.fyi/tropes-md so at least we remove all the USUAL tells. I cannot stand to read articles like this any longer.