That and it was advertised heavily when it came out in 2008.

looks advertised to me...

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/421112

I think it's compared primarily to Playstation and Xbox games that he's thinking...even if he doesn't realize it.

These are games with multi-million dollar budgets, mega-corporation branding and promotion--Ironclad and Stardock are really  independents with nowhere near the capital of the multibillion dollar big boys.

So you aren't seeing a three month network television/national radio/box store retail ad campaigns--that's where a lot of big game development money usually goes.

There will be a bigger advertising push when the time comes.  

I only looked into Sins because I kept seeing it in Walmart/Best Buy/Target and thinking "Huh, what a strange looking game". Eventually I decided to read some reviews on it and to my surprise instead of it being some cheesy space opera it got all of these best strategy game awards. Eventually got around to buying it and it became the game I sank the most hours into.

the collector's edition prolly counts as a collector's item.