In another interview they asked the developer if there would be gas planets in the game. He said no, every planet will be solid because otherwise players would be confused as to why they can't land on some planets.
So there you go, the target audience for this revolutionary game is people who are confused by the existence of gas planets.
You could argue the same thing about having stars - I mean you can't land, so meh - why bother emulating reality and not just have something evenly lit?
Or space between planets, that's a bit meh and needed in a model of reality, how about just a drop-down menu to select where to teleport your ship to next?
I suspect the target audience is people who want to play an infinite universe space game, to whom little details like "An approximation of real life" tends to kind of be important. See: People in this thread, interested in the game, criticising it for the above.
So there you go, the target audience for this revolutionary game is people who are confused by the existence of gas planets.