The last meme - completely true.
You can make an amazing game, but without any marketing, you might as well be making nothing.
I suggest posting regular updates when in Alpha, make a demo for players to check it out and give feedback, posts updates and screenshots during Beta, amidst Beta make a trailer and post in on several game development and marketable sites (such as GameJolt, Flowlab (if you make the game on Flowlab), Game Dev Discord(s), Instagram, YouTube, etc.) along with other info. This would considered the announcement trailer. Nearing release, put out an official trailer (and sometimes, depending on the genre, a gameplay and/or story trailer) to gain more traction. Also making short documentaries during development may help as well. Finally, at launch, a launch trailer, maybe some news outlets (this can also be done during early phases), and so on.
What some people forget is after release - going with sales, festivity events, and maybe even DLC can bring in new players and keep current ones as well. Make sure to keep an eye out on bug reports and release free updates to fix such issues.
Anyways, sorry for this huge response, but it’s interesting to talk about such a neglected field of game development that ultimately can doom a project.