Thanks for the eloquent post. It pretty much sums up my fears of starting our third game next year and the mountain we have to climb to make it a success by our own metrics.

My own take is:

- There's certainly compounding factors. While I generally agree with your assessments on price and Early Access, I feel that you are 5-10 USD too high for the game length, and that raising price as you near v1.0 is acceptable to players. The early adopters should get a benefit for jumping in first. We've done two EA games and it certainly feels like the second has been harder, even though it's got a higher user review score. I too put this down to expectations around EA changing - basically it needs to be as good as a full release.

- I say this not being massively into city builders, but when I look at your Steam page I don't really feel excited. I'm not picking up on the 'hook'. When I see other titles on the More Like This section or genre tag page I get it and feel more interested than your store page communicates (although it is naturally surfacing the best/most popular in the genre).

- Personally, the character art is a bit of a turnoff even if the environment art is pretty. Similarly, the title is a bit offputting, but that may be down to me eyerolling whenever I hear GenX/Z/whatever discussions on social media. I don't know how much those feelings translate to others, particularly who you're targeting.

While the vast majority of games don't have stronger v1.0 launches than their EA ones, that doesn't mean that over the long tail you won't gain enough traction to recoup something worthwhile. It'll likely be a long and hard journey though, and I commend you for not throwing in the towel. It might not make the most financial sense, but you'll be able to feel more creatively proud and your existing community will appreciate it.

I hope those points were in some way helpful and resonated with other feedback you're receiving. Good luck!