[Discussion] — The Curious Case of Abandoned Games

[Neo Nocturne]

Honest Introduction:
I don't play ANY ABANDONED GAMES at all.

But since the abandonment issue is relatively high (Completed:Abandoned is around 53:23 just by using the filter), I would like to start a thread for everyone to discuss/share anything they know about the abandoned games. Hopefully everything will be a good reflection/reference for ourselves to predict what games will be abandoned in the future.

Personal Take:
Just point it out if I am wrong with any of the following theories (it will be nice if you can give us a counter-example or reference):

1. Abandoned games are just works of scammers.
I am not entirely sure if that is the case. Possibly 50/50? There are developers genuinely have IRL issues during developments while some scammers just push out a functioning potential demo/early version to bait us into offering financial support then leave in time to make a fortune.

2. Abandoned games are bad.
I guess most abandoned games are not well-received would be more appropriate? I did hear a few good words for certain abandoned games.

3. Abandonment can be predictable by studying the update frequency, the actual progress of each update, the responses from developers etc.
You tell me? I haven't done any research on that, do shine a light to guide me. Are there actual patterns we should be looking out? How do you know a game is being abandoned or not?

4. Abandoned games have no values on F95 and they should be eradicated.
Again, it's not something I am familiar with so I want more information. By far, it is certain some abandoned games do have a fan base, I am uncertain whether that is necessary.

Finally......
I am calling this a DISCUSSION. So feel free to discuss. If you see anything from anyone you disagree, don't go on full aggression mode. Tell us your opinion and talk about abandoned games if you too are interested in studying this weird yet growing trend on F95.
(I am not a frequent visitor, so don't mind me for belated replies and delayed reactions)

 

[Meaning Less]

Main reason is that there is no compelling argument for devs to complete their games since people are being paid before that. Because of patreon, games that are making money can just keep adding more stuff indefinitely, while the ones that don't make enough money have no reason to keep going and just abandon the project when they get tired.

Right now I appreciate the few devs that actually have a vision and follow through with it, actually delivering their projects to completion instead of gaming the system as much as they can with a single neverending project.

I'm sure with time people will start valuing completed games more, afterall we should reach a point with enough adult games that people won't have to keep playing scraps and beta versions of incomplete games just to find something new to fap.

 

[Cryswar]

Given how little most devs make from this, I doubt many abandoned games are intentional scams.

Most are probably just the result of optimistic individuals who had no idea how much work development could be, or how little net income most devs actually make from it, or got through the ideas they had planned and had no idea how to continue from there.

It's the same with non-H games, and... well, basically anything else that takes a lot of work. How many wannabe authors never finish their first book? How many people with a 'brilliant idea' never actually make millions from it?

If I remember the graphtreon numbers right, there's a bit over 300 total adult game patreons with an income over the US poverty line, and maybe 50 that even approach a middle-class income. Not all devs live in the US of course, $100 can go a lot further in some countries than others, but... you're generally better off just getting a job at your local grocery store.

 

[3D Reaver]

I think most are not intentional scams. But unless you are loaded it becomes harder and harder to justify spending time on making a game when you are not even getting enough to pay the bills let alone live a comfortable life. The pill is even bitter when you see scams like milfy shity an obvious scam with a shit story, poor quality models, sandbox padding and other shit raking it in while not producing anything for the last couple of years. I think for most devs its a side thing where they get some extra money but they actually need a job so updates take a very long time.

Honestly what succeeds and what doesn't is a mystery to me. because quallity doesn't really seam to be a factor. the biggest things i keep seeing in really successful games is milfs, lolis and incest.

 

[baloneysammich]

I pretty much agree with Cryswar. But

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is one of my core principles, so it can take a lot for me to conclude ill intent.

The pill is even bitter when you see scams like milfy shity an obvious scam with a shit story, poor quality models, sandbox padding and other shit

IMO even that started off as a good game. Story was nothing special, but the models were pretty good. IIRC there was a photoshoot scene with the older sister that was pretty unique for the time. And even the sandbox wasn't bad.

If I remember the graphtreon numbers right, there's a bit over 300 total adult game patreons

My inner data geek just glazed his shorts. Would you explain how to filter like that?

 

[Droid Productions]

My inner data geek just glazed his shorts. Would you explain how to filter like that?

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By default it sorts by # of supporters. We did a pass of the top 100 that actually include $ values, and it works out to be ~$5.60 average revenue/patreon. Some are lower; Dark Cookie's an example of a game that monetizes very soft touch (as do I), and as a result we tend to have a slightly lower revenue/user ratio. Others (that do $80 tier for a limited timed exclusive, then $50, then $20, etc) tend to have a higher ratio, but the average ~$5 is pretty solid.

Adeptus Steve (Wild Life) is a standout in the ones that publishes their revenue numbers, with closer to $10 /patreon. Make of that what you will

 

[3D Reaver]

IMO even that started off as a good game. Story was nothing special, but the models were pretty good. IIRC there was a photoshoot scene with the older sister that was pretty unique for the time. And even the sandbox wasn't bad.

Il disagree on started off good but i will say that it didn't start as a scam but it did become one when he realized that he didn't actually have to do anything for the money to keep coming in

 

[fantasmic]

Honest Introduction:
I don't play ANY ABANDONED GAMES at all.

You should. We're pirates anyway, so all you're really paying for it is your time. I don't feel there is much difference between "v0.4" and "v0.4 [Abandoned];" a good game is a good game, and if you play something that's trash at v0.56 you're unlikely to stop in again even if everyone says v1.02 is way better. Abandoned games likely do get scored lower than completed games on average, but if a completed game had no payoff for all it's build-up it would get a lower score too.

1. Abandoned games are just works of scammers.
I am not entirely sure if that is the case. Possibly 50/50? There are developers genuinely have IRL issues during developments while some scammers just push out a functioning potential demo/early version to bait us into offering financial support then leave in time to make a fortune.

I strongly disagree. You're likely thinking of a few high-profile abandoned games (such as Breeding Season or Milfy City) which were raking in thousands while having longer and longer delays between updates before imploding or being abandoned. Most game devs don't make livable wages off of Patreon, so a far more profitable scam would be tricking McDonalds into giving them a job.

2. Abandoned games are bad.
I guess most abandoned games are not well-received would be more appropriate? I did hear a few good words for certain abandoned games.

According to

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, most of everything is bad. Abandoned games, completed games, synthpop, Netflix original programming. For abandoned games, this makes even more sense if we evaluate them along the same lines as completed games (seeing as how they're not going to get anymore content) since a grindy, buggy mess is a grindy, buggy mess but games in development at least have the oppertunity to listen to feedback and improve on it before the full release.

3. Abandonment can be predictable by studying the update frequency, the actual progress of each update, the responses from developers etc.
You tell me? I haven't done any research on that, do shine a light to guide me. Are there actual patterns we should be looking out? How do you know a game is being abandoned or not?

There are no patterns. Sometimes it's quicker to see that a game is being abandoned if it was being updated monthly before suddenly having 3 months of silence, but other games only update every 3-4 months. It could seem like production is slowing down, but really it's just the artist who is the bottleneck. Or an update is released that looks a bit lean since most of the work was done ironing out the quest system and combat mechanics instead of adding more tits. When a project is tagged [abandoned] here there will always be people going "Hah! What did I tell you all? I knew it!," just as there will be people claiming a game is a scam just because the update is a week-late.

4. Abandoned games have no values on F95 and they should be eradicated.
Again, it's not something I am familiar with so I want more information. By far, it is certain some abandoned games do have a fan base, I am uncertain whether that is necessary.

... what are the values of f95? This is a site for the discussion and piracy of porn games. If it's porn and/or we're pirating it I think it's fine, even if the specific product is only game-adjacent or porn-adjacent.

I think it's also worth considering that [Abandoned] ≠ abandoned. Sure, sometimes the dev goes awol, but other times the project gets a c&d or the game never was more than a side-project and the dev says so right in the description. Sometimes [Onhold] would be more accurate tag, but you can't really expect a mod to investigate every game or the dev to step in and correct information on every piracy site they comes across.

 

[anne O'nymous]

1. Abandoned games are just works of scammers.
I am not entirely sure if that is the case. Possibly 50/50?

A scam that cost you more than you'll earn is a really bad scam.

[...] while some scammers just push out a functioning potential demo/early version to bait us into offering financial support then leave in time to make a fortune.

I have a scoop for you: More or less 75% of the authors don't make enough to buy a beer/week, and around 50% can buy one by month at most. It's only a minority, and I talk about a 0.01% minority, that effectively make a fortune.

2. Abandoned games are bad.
I guess most abandoned games are not well-received would be more appropriate? I did hear a few good words for certain abandoned games.

Some are, effectively, but there's also really bad games, or badly received games, that are finished.
There's surely some authors who realize how bad their game is and abandon it for this reason, but they are an exception.

3. Abandonment can be predictable by studying the update frequency, the actual progress of each update, the responses from developers etc.

Absolutely not.

4. Abandoned games have no values on F95 and they should be eradicated.

Totally not.


Games are abandoned because too many people believe, like you do, that making a game is something easy and cost free, that will permit them to earn a fortune.
But the reality is that it cost you a lot, and you'll spend all your free time, sacrificing a big part of your social life for this, to earn between US$ 10/month and US$ 1000/month if you aren't part of the (more or less) 15% lucky ones.

And even the said 15% lucky ones aren't as lucky as you can think. They'll earn between US$ 2 000/month and US$ 20 000/month before taxes, the time they are making games, and only during this time. Assuming that most of them are in their thirty and will achieve to do this for 10 years, they'll still have 20 years before retirement.
Finding a job with a 10 years gap in your resume is not something easy, but easier than if saying that you made adult games during those 10 years. And if they achieve to do this, it will have to match their previous income, what is really unlikely to happen. Therefore what they earned while being an adult game author will have to last for the rest of their life. And no, unless change is really in your favor, you can't live 60 years by earning US$ 20 000/month during 10 years.

 

[anne O'nymous]

My inner data geek just glazed his shorts. Would you explain how to filter like that?

Well, looking at the bottom of

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, you found five creators that earn between US$ 2 000 and US$ 3 000, two that earn between US$ 1 000 and US$ 2 000, one that earn less than US$ 600, plus three that don't show their earning. Looking at the top of the same page is not more encouraging since only three earn more than US$ 4 000/month (one of them earning twice that). The first one to earn less than US$ 2 000/month (US$ 1 226) is XFiction, 136th in number of patrons.

Of course, this don't count itch.io, steam, subscribestar and all, but globally speaking those who earn less than US$ 1 000/month on Patreon will not be more successful on other platforms.

 

[Deleted member 4671389]

I wouldn't say abandoned in my case, but a case of writers block killed motivation and the game almost turned out to be shorter than what it is now.

 

[baloneysammich]

3. Abandonment can be predictable by studying the update frequency, the actual progress of each update, the responses from developers etc.

Seems plausible to me, but I can only speculate. Are there any statisticians in the audience?

 

[Cryswar]

Games are abandoned because too many people believe, like you do, that making a game is something easy and cost free, that will permit them to earn a fortune.
But the reality is that it cost you a lot, and you'll spend all your free time, sacrificing a big part of your social life for this, to earn between US$ 10/month and US$ 1000/month if you aren't part of the (more or less) 15% lucky ones.

Your whole post is excellent, but I really want to stress how accurate this bit is. $X on patreon can have very little to do with what a dev actually takes home after game development and taxes.

For those unfamiliar with some possible dev expenses;

People who make 3d games tend to have to replace graphics cards much more often since constant rendering puts a huge strain on them, or upgrade their rig to render at more effective speeds, and that shit ain't cheap. Can be 1k+ for a good gfx card alone, and oops, there goes more than a month of Patreon for most!

Games that use commissions... well... let's just say that out of the $294/month I'm currently making on Patreon, ~270 goes to commissions and the rest to bills. Character art/sprites, CGs, backgrounds, music, UI, banners - it can add up fast. To say nothing of the massive time investment finding/interacting with artists, getting references, and making design docs; I have no idea how Threshold (MGD) handles it lmao.

God forbid a game has more than one person working on it, or you have to split the income; Summertime Saga is making an incredible ~72k a month... split between 7 people (idk the rates). That goes from doctor money to middle-class money real fast.

And any skill you learn to cut down on expenses means less time you can spend on other aspects of rendering. Sure, I could put 4 hours a day into art to get to the point where I can handle some of those expenses myself, buuuut that's 4 hours a day I can't write anymore, so oops, there goes half the time I'd usually spend writing! Hope you like half the content speed.

Something like a pure text game can get away with less expenditure, but any game trying to look pretty enough to get attention does NOT get there for free. Everything has a cost, in time or money, and just glancing at a Patreon page doesn't give that much insight.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Seems plausible to me, but I can only speculate. Are there any statisticians in the audience?

Statistic wouldn't help you.

Look at Ecchi Sensei... It's not because one pretend that he will not abandon his game. And at the opposite of the spectrum you've games like. Same for the frequency of the updates, or a change in this frequency. WVM past from one update every 15 days, to one every now and then, does this mean that the game will be abandoned soon ? I doubt.
There's games that were updated frequently and had an active author, but ended abandoned. Like there's games updated every now and then by a mostly silent author, that progress and really look far to be abandoned one day.

People who make 3d games tend to have to replace graphics cards much more often since constant rendering puts a huge strain on them, or upgrade their rig to render at more effective speeds, and that shit ain't cheap. Can be 1k+ for a good gfx card alone, and oops, there goes more than a month of Patreon for most!

And it's not just the graphic card, the CPU and the motherboard also have a hard life.
Ideally one should spent his first earning on a second computer. Not to do twice more renders, but to do the same amount with twice less stress for the computers. I have no stats for this, but I'm pretty sure that it would cost less in the end.
But obviously no author will do that. If they have a second computer, it will be to do more renders, or complex renders in the same global time than simple ones.

God forbid a game has more than one person working on it, or you have to split the income; Summertime Saga is making an incredible ~72k a month... split between 7 people (idk the rates). That goes from doctor money to middle-class money real fast.

It don't think it's split like that. DarkCookie is now more a studio than anything else, so people are payed accordingly to what they are doing. But yes it still mean that DarkCookie himself is earning way less than it seem.
And talking about studios, in many countries you can't earn more than a given amount as side income. Passed this amount, you've to create your own society, what imply more fees and taxes, and also more side works or to have to pay someone for the administrative part.
Globally speaking, I assume that in the end DarkCookie himself earn only half the amount of the pledges.

And any skill you learn to cut down on expenses means less time you can spend on other aspects of rendering. Sure, I could put 4 hours a day into art to get to the point where I can handle some of those expenses myself, buuuut that's 4 hours a day I can't write anymore, so oops, there goes half the time I'd usually spend writing!

And how many months will it take you to reach the level of skill you'll need ? Especially since, having started a game, you'll have to be good enough to mimic the artist you actually pay. Else the change in the CG style will perhaps look really bad and make you loose all support.
The same applying for 3D renders. Every artist have his own style, and it's parts of what make someone like and support the game.

Something like a pure text game can get away with less expenditure, but any game trying to look pretty enough to get attention does NOT get there for free. Everything has a cost, in time or money, and just glancing at a Patreon page doesn't give that much insight.

You'll pass the night up because you really feel the scene you're working on, there's no way you stop. This mean that you'll have an higher power bill ; not just for the computer and light, you'll perhaps have the TV on to have some background noise. This night you'll also drink more coffee/tea/whatever to stay up, and do so the next day because you haven't slept. You'll probably also not pass 8 hours without eating, it will help you stay focused. Bonus points if you smoke.
And even if you don't pass the night up, it will be that day where at the opposite you don't feel it at all. You'll be looking at your computer, your mind furiously blank... Again you'll drink and eat more, this time to deal with the stress.
Oh, and what about that day you'll go crazy, spending money on paintball or whatever, treating yourself for a well deserved day off because you're near to a burn out. Or going to a fancy restaurant to make up with your girlfriend/wife that you neglected recently.

It's invisible expenses, but they wouldn't exist if you weren't making a game. And in the end of the month if you put them together I'm sure that they go further than the US$ 24 that you haven't spent on commissions.


But this, peoples who just play don't see it, and most of them don't imagine that it's the reality of game making.

 

[NaughtyOnes]

I imagine most authors do not do this for a living, at some point real life kicks in and only having a few spare hours a day to work on something would cause for slow development and likely less willingness to continue with what is essentially a hobby.

I have no issues with a dev that feels its better for them to abandon there project for the most part.
Its the few that string along patrons for years telling them the next update will be right around the corner and it never comes.
Or those that abandon titles constantly only to announce the next project directly after.

 

[Neo Nocturne]

Good to see I have opened up a good discussion and everybody is bringing everything in.

To everyone who thought I have no idea on the expenditure of game making etc., not really. I did point out the high cost of [animation] and how that may put a dent in certain project (which is still onhold now on F95). I relatively have a good estimate on how much it may cost and time needed for certain things. Don't ask me how and why I know those things. I just know.

As for the value of abandoned games and whether they are good/bad, to be perfectly clear, the bolded statement is just the point I am bringing up and my take is right below that. So I am not antagonizing those who abandoned their game (for whatever reasons) or calling them (the abandoned games) straight bad. All of my takes simply start with one side then end with a different side, purposely to setup a discussion. So stop quoting me and bring up even more valuable information from other perspectives for us to look into.

(Interesting topics for the rest of you who want to dig deeper into this mysterious case:
1. Abandoned games getting picking up by another developer?
2. How developer can ensure their game get finished
3. What are the most accessible tools for future developer in the current market?
etc.)

Finally, please keep the discussion as informative as possible. I did say I was aiming for more information, if you have anything a noob like me wouldn't know how to dig up from average search engine like Google, do point us in that direction. Give us more to read and understand [Abandoned Games]. Share us stories, tales, lores or myths about various developments of different games you had kept tracking. If you have speculations, do tell us, I am sure somebody can come back with more information to verify.

Quick thanks to Meaning Less, Cryswar, anne O'noymous, grohotor, Fantasmic, Droid Production etc. for more details to our curious case so far. Let's see what's more we can learn from this case study!

 

[justpassingbyreally]

So stop quoting me

Too late; sorry.

3. Abandonment can be predictable by studying the update frequency, the actual progress of each update, the responses from developers etc.

You tell me? I haven't done any research on that, do shine a light to guide me. Are there actual patterns we should be looking out? How do you know a game is being abandoned or not?

I know from a trusted source that the mods are behind it, 100% of the time. There is no tag for "this game is officially abandoned and will never be finished".

4. Abandoned games have no values on F95 and they should be eradicated.

Again, it's not something I am familiar with so I want more information. By far, it is certain some abandoned games do have a fan base, I am uncertain whether that is necessary.

Sounds like "I don't like X, therefore X shouldn't exist." It's all a matter of the journey vs the destination mindset. An abandoned-and-unfinished game (any game, not just the ones here) is not much different from the one with officially finished development, except it's shorter than intended and the ending is more likely to be shit a cliffhanger - and before the development is over, a partially-finished project should provide the same amount of entertainment no matter whether it may get completed in two years or the author's only backup drive gets eaten by a dog and he vows to join an Amish community.

If a project dies early on, it can be seen as a tech demo, and if it had any original ideas for the story or mechanics, it could be used by someone as inspiration or a reverse-engineering target. If one doesn't find checking out tech demos enjoyable, it's not mandatory to play them.

If it dies later, I've played half-finished dead indie projects that were more fun than an average Triple-A game.

If the gameplay part is missing and we're looking at the story alone, a lot of manga one-shots that never got serialized are prologues to, or brief excerpts from, nonexistent works, and yet people read and like them. People are even fine with looking up an image (or a bunch of them) on some booru "for friend's research". So a short teaser of a story or the CGs that made it in could still be enjoyed.

And on the other side of the fence you have officially complete crowdfunded games that didn't meet some of their initial goals (that may have been the sole reason why someone backed them), games that due to time constraints shipped with unfinished mechanics and rushed endgame that spoils the experience, dead games that required connecting to developer's server to work (not necessarily MMOs) and someone pulled the plug on them once they stopped being profitable...

1. Abandoned games getting picking up by another developer?
2. How developer can ensure their game get finished

Modding support could be an answer to both (either as a way for players to make their own fun inbetween releases, thus keeping the interest in the project from falling, or for them to wrap it up themselves once the developer goes away). Licenses allowing for other people to pick up and modify/adopt the project also help.

Someone releasing assets of their unfinished projects for free, or

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(a good Disgaea-like, by the way), also isn't unheard of; however, I wouldn't expect everyone to be fine giving away their babies that way.

 

[baloneysammich]

Statistic wouldn't help you.

...

Statistician was the wrong term. I was really thinking along the lines of people who assess the viability of investments for venture capitalists, retirement funds, etc.

I haven't followed the progress of enough games closely enough to present a counter argument. Ecchi Sensei is the only game I followed regularly from start to present. It's also the only game I ever really considered supporting financially, but there were too many red flags even before the current controversy.

Given the nature of the industry, my base speculation has always been that most games will end up abandoned or otherwise failed. I just can't dismiss the possibility that one could potentially find patterns among completed games if one tried hard enough. Practically speaking though, I think the sample size is probably too small.

1. Abandoned games getting picking up by another developer?

Given the amateur nature of most projects it's highly improbable devs will ever take it upon themselves to consider eg. licensing. Only example I can think of is Oxopotion. A former patron summarized that situation here for anyone interested. IMO he was an outlier even before he abandoned the scene.

It's safe to say that paid licensing will never become common. Beyond that, it's all speculation until somebody actually polls the devs.

On a semi-related note, I've wondered about the viability of collaborating with or licensing the work of erotic fiction authors.

 

[Joshua Tree]

Consider majority of all these creators does this as a hobby in their spare time. And a game can take years to complete. Look at your own life and what changes you might experience in 3-4 years time? Pandemic, war, life, death, marriage, kids. school,new job, get fired, etc etc.. Creators of these kind of games isn't robots that is immune to real life, nor burn themselves to the ground ending up hate the entire project.

People really need to stop look at Patreon as "buying something"... You pledge to support the creator, and whatever that creator are doing (for as long as it is interesting for you to do so). If the creator suddenly take up finger painting kittens rather than make fapgames for you. Well, shiet... that is still their choice, just as it is the supporters choice to cancel their pledge.

As for someone picking up abandoned games and carry on. If I pledge to a creator because I think his game is good, and one day he/she abandon it for whatever reason. I wouldn't start pledge to whatever rando picking it up to continue, because it's the creator that made it good. The chance of someone pick up an abandoned project got most likely much to do about they want to cash in on a successful project rather than bring much of any value themselves to the table.

A clusterfck of a example is Game of Thrones... Look at how the tv series ended up when they ran out of source material and had to start invent shit themselves, as R.R Martin was to slow release new books/material.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I haven't followed the progress of enough games closely enough to present a counter argument. Ecchi Sensei is the only game I followed regularly from start to present. It's also the only game I ever really considered supporting financially, but there were too many red flags even before the current controversy.

Having followed it since the starts, and talked with BlueCat both in public and private, the only effective problem was that he was seeing too big for his original release time ; it would have needed 52 years to finish the story. But it could have been solved, and everything else was irrelevant or positive.

That he had no coding knowledge wasn't a problem, many finished games were started by author who never codded before. That he had "feature still to implement" neither is. And here the best example is probably Dreams of Desire, that was not only finished, but also had an elite version years later. Same for the "special release", with once again Dreams of Desire as counter example.
Even the developing time was not something bad, we always had an amount of content matching the waiting time. And, while it's not at the same level, Drawing My Life is a finished game that also had a story "too big for a first game". As for the positive, he was really invested in the game, and clearly knew where the story was going.

For each point that you seen as a red flag, there's at least one corresponding finished game. At least for each one prior to the release of the Week 2 edition. After this, yes, his "we need to rebuild in order to merge" was a big one, but it appeared years after the initial release ; yet there's rebuilt games that have been finished, even if right now no names cross my mind.
At the opposite, you've ICSTOR that had many finished games, and abandoned his last one.

The truth is that there's no way to predict if a game will be finished or abandoned. There's a moment when you feel that there will be no more updates, but it's too late.

Given the nature of the industry, my base speculation has always been that most games will end up abandoned or otherwise failed.

Yet, even without counting the games made by studios, it's not what happen.

I just can't dismiss the possibility that one could potentially find patterns among completed games if one tried hard enough. Practically speaking though, I think the sample size is probably too small.

It's just the sample you get here that is too small. While we can find here the biggest collection of modern adult games, they aren't all present and there were a life before modern adult gaming. Almost none of the games released prior to 2015 are present here, yet those games existed and where released under worse conditions.

On a side note, it could perhaps be interesting to start a vintage section, with members looking into the depth of their hard drive to find the few oldies that they haven't deleted yet.

It's safe to say that paid licensing will never become common. Beyond that, it's all speculation until somebody actually polls the devs.

As Joshua Tree said, licensing wouldn't really works. I would even go further than him, it wouldn't works even if the authors give the script and the models.
The effective game is never 100% corresponding to the script. Every author make last minute adjustment because the scene as seen for real is never exactly as it was in his mind, or because he had a new idea while working on the CG. And it's most likely that the new author will also have his own vision and change a possibly big part of the said script.
Same goes for the models. Even if it can seem that they are all the same, the way the scenes are build, then rendered, is personal. Without counting the different computer, that can possibly do more, or less. The difference would be felt by the players and they could perfectly not like the new version.
It worked, more or less, for Poke Abby because it's mostly a redesign of the game, but it's the exception that prove the rule. Yet, as I said, it's just "more or less". Difficult to say that people were pleased by the last release. Precisely because there will be no more, and also because the game was already finished.

On a semi-related note, I've wondered about the viability of collaborating with or licensing the work of erotic fiction authors.

Well, either they are amateurs authors, and they surely would want to do the game by themselves (there's some on the scene), or you don't have the money for the license.