Maybe not Kickstarter specifically, but they are doing the other stuff.
> Nobody's translating these games into 10 languages.
That's a little unreasonable ask. Given how little money these games will bring in you can't expect that.
> Nobody's QA-testing the heck out of them to ensure they don't have any obscure edge-case bugs. Etc. (This was why I brought up Planet X3: it's an example of a modern retro-game that is polished in exactly this sense.)
There is QA testing happening but like with the above, you can't expect smaller operations to pay people to QA. So you end up either having "QA" be demo builds, in which case most people end up with a copy so you can't do the premium carts that you're also asking for. Or you just have to accept that QA is a smaller operation but still have the beautiful hardware copy.
Even really well polished games on other platforms with much bigger audiences, like Xeno Crisis for the Mega Drive / Genesis, have had their share of bugs too. Even in the original days of these consoles, when games from big studios with big budgets to spend on testing, we'd still see new releases with bugs-galore.
> But a desire to go through all the effort to create polished modern GB games, is the sort of thing that requires market demand — a willingness to spend real money to buy new GB games (whether digitally or physically.) No hobbyist game developer is going to spend a year on "things that aren't programming" to make a nice shippable product out of their game, if that isn't going to result in at least breaking even on their effort.
This doesn't even happen with new games on current generation consoles. So I don't understand why you're expecting it to happen with retro-consoles.
> And a prerequisite for that demand, is public awareness of the fact that modern GB games are being created — and, more importantly, a public "brand" awareness for the people creating them!
I don't think awareness is the problem. I think most people just don't care. If you're a retro gamer you are probably already aware, and if you're not then you're never going to play these games anyway. And I honestly can't blame people for not caring. There's so much content out there these days that GB games (with all the warts that the GB hardware had, by modern day standards) simple aren't going to appeal to most people.
I think you're setting your expectations far too high.
> Indie game jams are great and all; but they don't create brand awareness
Again, there are plenty of releases that aren't the results of game jams.