I dont know how promotion goes for mobile, since I dont like using cell phones or tablets for gaming, but for PC, its virtually unknown to most people and most related google searches dont bring it up. I like games like this, and played EVE and other scifi spaceship themed games for many years but this went under my radar. Only reason I found it was because by luck an EVE friend mentioned it. I am pretty sure you could get this game in Steam Greenlight and promote it better in general to online gaming sites and search engines

Got a spare couple of thousand dollars they can use for it? Imo fixing game is more important than promoting it and maintaining the retention rate which is low as fuck.

Make it fun, for all players first, then the rest will fall into place.

And how you suggest they get the funds for it, if they dont get more people who subscribe?

It is more a matter of where they put their existing funds. They could do a promotion and get a lot of people to try the game only to end up quitting and leaving VO with a bad public image. Most of the VO population got here with little to no advertising on the part of GS.

When they decide the game is ready, they will divert the appropriate funds for an add campaign. This has been said and discussed on a number of occasions.

THIS Steam Greenlight? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=124255217

Here's a commercial (admittedly for Android) that was everywhere on TV for a short while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1USoUGpPBk8

The statement about retention is based on anecdotal "evidence" by the way.

Word of mouth is an effective tool; Web 3.0 is well on its way here.

Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest... the space is wide open. Contacting the devs privately about advertising in physical space may also be an option.