Sometimes it happens very quickly, sometimes it happens slowly but no matter the speed if you keep doing it without giving up then you will get bigger. You might have just 1000 active users but then with one marketing you will attract 100 more people, 50 of those may leave but then you still have 1050 which is bigger than your first, that kind of consistency will get your numbers up in the long term.
So you are saying that windice do not big enough to get more players? You can't compare new site to old site because it id totally different. Windice is still on progressing mean while some other big sites already stuck with it then they can just do some promotions to attract players. But different on windice, they can still developing more on their sites. They just need to be patient to get there
Windice is doing pretty well and stats arent fake and reaching out high milestones is the proof.