All right, here's why I didn't buy:
- I'm not that much into the genre. Things I'm looking for usually are: point and click (and variations of the genre), horror, psychological or 'really bad games' (to satisfy my childish and sick sense of humor - GOG, what about Country Justice, Road to Hell: Retribution or Big Rigs? :)). Ethan is neither of those.
- I like my games having good plot \ writing rather than action.
- I have some puzzle platformers on my backlog (A Walk in the Dark - really nice one; Limbo - another good one; 99 Levels of Hell - too quick and shiny for me, etc.).
- When a game is set in space, I prefer it to be serious s-f \ space opera than antropomorphic rat hunting meteors.
So, overall, I guess I'm not this game's target audience...

Oh, yeah, I forgot to say why I didn't buy the game even though I was kind of interested in it. I first saw the game on GOG, but noticed that it was light on extras. I saw that the game's website had a Deluxe Edition available (Humble widget) which looked pretty appealing, then saw the price ($14.90), said to myself "ok, buy later" and forgot about it until I saw your thread. :D
http://www.ethan-game.com/

How can I say this without seeming insulting, because I'm sure their team worked very hard on this.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't give two flying fucks about your indie platformer anymore. This genre is completely oversaturated to the point where when I see YET ANOTHER ONE, I auto-pass. Is it your fault? No, unless you thought yours was so unique that it'd stand out in an already crowded market. Guess what...it doesn't. Not even a little bit, nor is it revolutionary or something I need to spend my shrinking gaming hours playing, unless your entry changes fundamental mechanics of the genre, okay?

Everybody and their second cousin's baby's mama's son's great auntie have a "unique indie puzzle platformer" out, and more often than not? Yours isn't unique.

That's actually a good point. I think being mediocre is sometimes worse than being terrible...

Since the "successes" of Braid and Super Meat Boy everyone and their mother have been trying to ape those games. The problem with this is that braid itself wasn't really a good game to begin with (I haven't played Meta Boy,s o no comment there), but it came out in a time when 2D games and platformers were practically extinct. now the genre has boon over saturated with second- or third class imitations of those two games.

Ethan doesn't look like it does anything better or more interesting than any other indy platformer. I'm sure there are enough mechanical differences, but every other indy platformer has some "unique twist" to it. The problem is that "unique" twists and art styles are not the substance of a game, they are just some spice you add. If the substance of all these games is the same, and was never really good to begin with, then why on earth wold people be buying your game? Just because it exists?

I don't think there is no place for platformers in general, but they need to have a solid substance. Super Mario Bros. didn't need any gimmicks like puzzles or ultra-hard levels to be successful and still remain played to this day, it just needed to be a solid platformer at its core.

My answer is: market's saturation. It's really hard to find dozens of people willing to pay 10 bucks for an indie platformer game while there are tens of those in bundles, on sale etc.

Dear indie developers - start making strategy games! :)

I could get behind more strategy games!

Making a decent strategy game is quite a lot harder though. While making an outstanding platformer takes a considerable amount of skill, creating a platformer is not super-hard (speaking from experience here, by the way, though I would not call the games I've created good). Creating a strategy game, even a basic one (possibly not including basic tower defense games), as long as you actually care about it getting good, and don't want a game where you just push pieces, is quite tricky. Same with CRPGs (unless you just want to throw something simple together in RPGmaker). That's probably why indies gravitate towards platformers & puzzle games, because they are so much easier to make.

Note that making a good game takes skill & dedication, no matter the genre, so even though platformers, tower defense games & puzzle games are a bit easier to make, actually making a good one is hard. This is most likely the reason why we see so many bad ones from those genres.

I lose interest whenever I see the words puzzle and platformer appear next to each other. I'm sure Ethan: Meteor Hunter is a fine example of its genre but it's not special and that makes it a hard sell to someone like me whose backlog is cluttered with such games.

Let's look at GOG's release blurb for the game: It's the indie platformer trifecta of terror: "adorable," "puzzle," and "twist," three words that all but guarantee that I've already stopped reading. In this case, I did.

Was that unfair of me? Possibly, but while I'm a big fan of action platformers, I am not such a fan of side-scrolling puzzle games. I will play them from time to time, but only if I'm in just the right mood. I assume the question "why didn't you buy the game?" is directed at their core audience, which I guess I'm not part of.

for me, I have a hard time with platform types & when a game is advertised as "hard" it's like it's saying "Welcome to the hell of frustation, muhaha!" so I passed it by.

Remember Botanicula? The game that was featured in a humble bundle the day it was released on GOG?

I love being able to redeem my copy in more than one digital distributor, but i have to agree with you, thare are MANY people that abuse the system to multiply their license. Heck, even here on GOG we've already seem many people giving away/trading an unredeemed key after already reddeming it on another platform, such as Steam. Unfortunately, you can't have nice things, there will always be people who will abuse the system to get as much as they possibly can.

Well, about the games themselves i have to agree with what everyone else said. The market is currently saturated with platformers and Ethan seems to be just another generic platformer. If the game doesn't have anything to make it stand out from the others, it will be pretty hard to sell it. I don't think that the release of GTA V has anything to do with it. Both games belong to completely different genres to begin with. I doubt someone would decide not to buy a U$10 indie platformer just because GTA V came out. Yeah, Rayman Legends did come out at at the same time and it does belong to the same genre, but i don't know if it made that much of a difference.

Since i love platformers i would definitely get Ethan, but not at full price. Don't get me wrong, i would love to support indie developers, but i have so many indie platformers in my backlog right now (including some much more well received games such as Super Meat Boy, Giana Sisters and New Super Mario Bros Wii U) that there is absolutely NO reason at all for me to buy yet another indie platformer, unless it's in a bundle. I would love to support indie developers buying more games at full price, but the money i can spend on gaming is limited.

Now Race The Sun is a game that looks pretty good and very unique, but i wouldn't buy it, not even with a deep discount. I hate endless-runners, i just can't stand the genre. I don't like score-attack games in general. If the only objective the game offers me is to get a high score, then it's not for me. I do enjoy endless games like Minecraft and Don't Starve because these games do give me reasons to keep playing. In Minecraft i can collect stuff, build stuff, kill some monsters, explore the random-generated world. In endless-runners i just have to run, run, run, run, run, dodge from hazards, run, run, run. No, this is just not the type of game for me. And to be very honest endeless-runners do seem to be much more of a mobile genre than anything.

Exactly. But my point is: instead of making another 3 puzzle-platformer games start creating one decent strategy game.

They also had a truly interesting approach to their genre, and very good demo (on web, even!) to hook people with. I fell prey to that demo, and happily so.