Guys, chill. I've no idea why you think this is going to be yet another one of his excuses and scams. It doesn't make sense to keep this going until his "big reveal".
His scam was going on just fine, why would he change his MO completely? There was literally nothing that would prompt it, so it's not like he was forced to do one final push.
He had way too much time to not complete the game. He mentioned having a team, and certainly had the money to hire people, so within the scope of a year (or three years since Act I Part IX), with the money pouring in, he could have had the game completed and fully tested behind the scenes. (I only say a year because it was a year ago that he admitted he was a lazy ass.)
If that's what happened, he's now executing a perfect strategy in the way of milking his baby.
If he commissioned a CGI artist and a copywriter, their job is complete. He can reduce the number of hours for his programmer to a bare minimum as well, but still retain him to fix bugs that will inevitably appear once the game is in the hands of players.
Suppose he has the game ready. He'll reveal the Prologue today. In a gesture of "good will," he'll release it for free to all. Supporters or not, we'll all get access to it. It makes sense, he'll gain people who will want to get in on his February 28th release of Act I (Part I-X).
Last year he promised that he would give out the game for free to all patrons who supported him even just once between Part IX and Part X release. They're going to get the Act I release by end of February.
Once he whet their appetites, it will be two months until the release of Act II (April 30th). So those who sign up in February will pay for February, March, April and likely May because Patreon and Gumdrop operate on Pacific Time, so unless you stay up and download the game immediately when it drops, most of his supporters will be charged overnight (for them) for May, and even if their bank (or Paypal) doesn't clear the transaction, they'll simply lose access, so they will have to renew it for May to get access.
Next release is July 4th. So those who don't cancel in the meantime will be paying for May, June and July.
And boy, did he increase his Patreon rates in anticipation of that. He gets ca. 5 months funding from his most avid supporters and it goes up to almost four times his previous rates. So if his patron count jumps up to, say, 1000 and his average jumps 2x (from $10 to $20), he gets $20,000 a month, adding up to some $100,000 over those five months.
And I'll bet he'll have "extra content" for those who stay after July and will tease his next game (that will take another five years to develop).
