I thought the exact same thing when I read this fantastic story of someone who's hard drive is possibly gone with all that hard work and didn't back it up.
From what I'm reading, the guy has a lot going on, it's a lot of pressure, and in his position, if I didn't do the work, I couldn't simply say I didn't do the work, so I'd come up with something like this. Is it ethical? No, but it'll get people off my back for a bit so I can get my shit in order as far as work/life/jackerman duties.
As you and others have said, we'll never know, but I really don't think it's wild to imagine this could just be something said to delay it. It's really strange to not back up your work, especially because he makes some money off it, it's a job, and you wouldn't want to fuck with it by not doing the basic thing of backing up your work.
It's just strange that there's people willing to just buy this without being a little curious how someone who pours hundreds of hours into his work doesn't make sure it's backed up and doesn't get lost. And the whole 'no big deal' is if it's lost tells me it's not really lost, and he'll get some extra time making people think he's working on it while taking care of other business and then he can release it when he has more time.
I'm saying all of this but I'm not mad at the guy if that's what he's doing, it seems to be a crap-ton of work, and I don't think he can honestly say, 'hey guys, I'm fucking swamped so I need a break', so this is one way to do it.
...Or he really lost his hard drive, in which case that's moronic for someone that's been doing this for a while and makes money from it. So dumb it's just that hard to believe, but crazier things have happened.
