Aerial Antics failed because the gameplay was boring,not enough variation or anything to maintain interest.
My biggest gripe with Arial Antics was joypad control. If it had been playable with a joypad, I would've definately bought it. Did we even spend $200 on marketing? Aside from the web hosting, download.com and robosoft submission, we did almost none at all.
That's not marketing, that's promotion, and it's this misconception that's the main reason so many indie developers are doing too great. use the time torefine progrraming skill and you can get benefit when Max3D released.
Programming skill is secondary. Like Jeremy says, a good product does not garuntee success. Instead I would suggest spending some time doing market analysis and forming a coherent marketing strategy, to better determine which game to make, and the most successful way to get it to market. dEtermine rollout procedures, tool development and all the other things you're going to need for success.Ultimately I believe that the proverb about a poor craftsman blaming his tools, probably has a lot of truth to it.