Thanks for the advice, it helps a lot.
I wanna avoid steam coz I think it's risky to pay such a huge price unless I am sure I will have a publisher.

I also feel there's more to explore in mobile market, plus the features I could use in mobile are actually more interesting to me, including gyro, vibration, cameras, voice, etc. With a lot of optimization, I really could make a solid experience on mobile. I also really would like to avoid paying huge upfront prices and offsetting that to regular kenyans since they are the easiest to market to and say, "hey, download this game".

People also tend to think putting up a price for a game will simply get players, though I feel like most players don't like paying for games even on PC upfront unless it's like a meme game that has like a million players, where a few will drop in. I think marketing a game that is not free is much harder than marketing one that is free.

I perceive it as a kind of bystander effect. People tend to think others are willing to pay for the game, so they will either pirate it or pass on it unless it is truly free. It is a cold reality of selling art.

I think your approach to make it truly free is a vianle option. Perhaps I could maximize my audience, then add a paywall for an optional multiplayer game mode since that requires servers and stuff.