I have read quite a bit on these forums about lack of player-base, lack of market, etc.  These discussions often conclude one thing; lack of a sustainable game.  I would like to put forward a different perspective.

While I have never really understood the role-play approach to gaming, I think looking at the lore of this game and taking it to heart has something to offer.  The players “work” on a distant planet with large, exploitable energy reserves.  But, because the Perpetuum Project is still in its infancy, we represent little more than the advanced guard.  After all, energy transmission back to Earth hasn’t even come on-line yet.  We are simply laying the groundwork so that further exploitation of the energy resources can proceed. 

In this context, expecting the markets to be developed beyond a rudimentary level doesn’t make much sense.  Both the market and industry on Niaa are pretty much intended to be subsistence-level features at this stage of the Project’s development.  To expect them to be anything else is not really consistent with the “first on the beach” position that we, as the pioneering agents of the Project, find ourselves in.

Sure, it will be great when we have a higher population and both the market and industry became more vibrant.  But at the moment, the state of both is very consistent with the early stages of development of the Project described in the backstory.  The high rotation of new agents through the game also seems to fit as well; not everyone likes being a pioneer/settler.

I am not commenting on lack of advertisement, retention of playerbase or anything like that.  I simply feel that the devs do indeed have a plan for their game, it it consistent with the backstory, and will develop at its own pace.  While existence on Niaa may be sort of bleak, what do you expect when you partake in what is essentially an expeditionary force.  You can either choose to work through the "hard times" or not.  In an RP framework, I guess that would make you a bad employee that left because they couldn't cut the grade.

tl;dr – The current state of the market and industry seem to fit well with the world that the devs have framed for us.  Folks can either work with it or not.  To expect that both would be robust at the early stages of the Project’s development is asking for the world to be something that it has not yet evolved into.

Feel free to flame at will.