He makes the basic error of not recognizing that the user is always right. If nobody thinks your games are great then they aren't great. You missed at least something when you made the game. If he actually made great niche games he would have built up a community around them of people who love that style in the 40 years he has been making games, but ultimately nobody cared about his games.
You don't have to make everyone think your game is great, but you have to make at least a fraction of people think so. Even just 10 000 dedicated fans of the genre is more than enough to keep an indie developer going, but he couldn't even manage that.
I agree. If you want to influence a art form like games or music or writing, you have to have skin in the game and release things. Telling others their way is wrong isn’t going to change anything, the burden is on you to present that your model works and is superior in some way. You just have to have hard material you’ve created for that to happen. Everyone has their own great ideas to validate
You don't have to make everyone think your game is great, but you have to make at least a fraction of people think so. Even just 10 000 dedicated fans of the genre is more than enough to keep an indie developer going, but he couldn't even manage that.