Who Are These People?

My latest widget is up on just over a half dozen sites that provide free download figures to developers (and users), and to my surprise in a week and a half, I have managed to garner over 1,000 confirmed downloads. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the idea that people are downloading my game. After all, in almost a decade I have failed completely to market the thing to any kind of game company or agent (OK, I probably could have tried a little harder, but at a great financial burden). Nonetheless, my latest version, which I uploaded a whopping 10 hours ago, accounts for almost 250 downloads already.

I want to know who these people are! Better still, I want to know what they think. So far the only comments I have gotten on any of the sites were a) a response to my plea for critique (thank you, exq) and b) flame from a troll (I am almost certain that his assault on my game has increased its popularity, though that may be nothing more than post hoc thinking).

My wife says I am obsessed, tracking download growth for the last 10 days, and perhaps I am, but I have my reasons. My obsession has been driven by my bewilderment over the relative popularity of the widget. My first widget, which I released in mid-November, is still clawing its way through the mid-900s in download count, but I still have no idea whether people are using/playing my widgets or just downloading and dumping. It really is enough to make a man insane.