It’s not even Strangers of Paradise bad.
SWM supremacists / GamerGate have had it out to kill this game since the beginning like they do Prey and Grand Theft Auto 6 and all media featuring female and nonwhite leads.
Forspoken was never going to be a massive seller anyway.
The FF remake was in on the joke. That's the vibe it was going for and fully embraced it after the memes went live.
Really weird to push a GamerGate narrative for a game where they decided to cast a black woman in the lead role, and yet could not find one black woman for their 5 person writing team, that includes two 50 plus white men, and one 50 plus white woman.
Prey has gone over very well, despite the MRA types backlash. Hulu's biggest hit, by some ways apparently. Sure sexism and racism was always going to be an issue, but the idea that IP with women in the lead role can't sell even with that crap, just isn't true and that's been proven time and again. Whether it's Prey, Captain Marvel, Horizon, etc.
You say this game was never going to be a massive seller, and I ask, why? It had plenty of hype early, people were intrigued, and it's been featured prominently at premiere events. I feel like you've just left off the problems from the game and publisher themselves. A string of delays, underwhelming marketing, and what feels like a game that's been obviously downgraded from when they first showed it off. If this is great and doesn't end up a massive seller, that's going to be on the publisher. Hell, thy just admitted that those who actually want to play it have to wait three more months, because they don't think it will sell. That's zero confidence in your apparent new big IP.