I've recently played WIAB for the first time. It clearly isn't of the same caliber as Summer's Gone before the rework, and even the writing is less catchy than SG. But I liked it nonetheless, Leia, Katie and Dana are great girlfriend material and I'd be very happy to see more of them.
The problem is that even SG, the game that is updated the most frequently and could be called the "main game" at this point, will never get finished at this rate. 2.5 chapters released in the 2.25 years since the release of the first chapter of SG. And no update to WIAB for more than a year (and chapter 7 a very long way off). Target: 30 chapters each. So we are currently set for the completion of SG in 2046. The pace of delivery is way too slow for its ambitious scope. 1 full chapter every 3 months would already take almost 7 more years to finish the game, which is extremely long (too long) for a videogame development, and currently we are on a quarter of that pace, so well below that. And I'm not even going to do any calculation for WIAB.
And how many quality upgrades from technology (like Daz) will there be in 7 years prompting the rework of the previous chapters? A serious amount. There is a reason videogame projects are 3-5 years long at the most: they get outdated while in development (among other concerns).
I would expect measures to be taken to make it a more realistic project but so far I have the impression the problem is not seriously acknowledged. Some things could be done though. Either to increase the delivery output, or to lower the targeted scope. Pack SG/WIAB in 20 chapters instead of 30 and the finish line gets a lot closer. Hire another artist immediately and you can practically double the pace. But I wouldn't hold my breath about that, I've seen other artists in the same situation have impossible expectations of other artists that they should be able to have the exact same style as they have, so they never hire anyone. Also I believe Ocean plans on waiting until the switch to Blender after the first season (aka episode 10), so that is still in 6.5 years at the current pace, as if this is not an urgent thing to do.
Even with the optimistic outcome of those two measures, SG (the more frequently updated game) would be finished for Christmas 2029 if we take into account the current speed of development. So they're not enough.
I do think Ocean should put WIAB on hold. We're going through a 6-chapter rework, and apparently we are only going to see the first chapter rework after more than a year of waiting. There is just too much to catch up on before we see new content, and while WIAB is a very enjoyable game (and I would especially miss Leia), I find SG is superior. And whatever you think, everybody loses if no game gets completed. So put it on hold and use the second machine to produce animations (or other renders in parallel) for SG, speeding up the development some more.
Then maybe the quality target could be lowered a little. Maybe we can decrease a bit the amount and/or length of the animations as they take a long time to produce. But most importantly, being a perfectionist is the death of any such project. And for crying out loud, stop the reworks of earlier chapters until you have completed the game else in a couple of years there will be more things that will need a rework, and it slows everything down to a halt.
So some things that could be done to give us more frequent updates and finish SG in a reasonable amount of time, then pick up WIAB with a much better update pace. Releasing frequent updates will also certainly mean a greater interest from the audience and a much larger number of paying supporters, which on top of being worth it for Ocean would allow him to upgrade his hardware further and potentially hiring more help. It is the only viable way forward I can see, but it needs acknowledgement, and actions. If we continue contently like this, those games will become a meme of never getting completed and will eventually die out well before their planned end. And that would be a shame because they have unrivaled potential.
PS: I've been holding back this post for weeks as I did not want to risk offending Ocean. He is a great artist and I respect his work. But I had to say what's on my mind out of concern for the future of his games, I believe we're headed steadily to the wall and it urgently needs a course correction.
