Part of why I joined the Patreon was to see if I could get an inside scoop on why there's been such long delays, rather than read through allegations and complaints here. If it's clear that this thing is going nowhere, and I may need to continue my support for a couple more months just to see, then I will discontinue. But I give more to homeless people each month than I am donating to stoperArt, so it's not like I see it as some kind of major sacrifice on my part.
The money that comes in through his Patreon is an OK side hustle, I guess, depending on where he lives and what his expenses are. Having said that, in some ways developers put themselves in real binds: their subscribers don't provide enough money for them to quit their jobs and develop games full time (like DrPinkCake, for example), so they do part-time development which means fewer, smaller updates and so their support never really grows beyond a certain level. And JOHN, being a game with a female protagonist, will struggle to find a huge player base anyway because, from what I've seen, most AVN players lack our sophistication.
Also, frankly, I understand that sometimes life throws people challenges that they really struggle to cope with (deaths in the family, girlfriend/wife dumps you, etc.) and it may simply not be possible to devote any real time to game development for a time. I've no idea if any of those issues are at play here, but I want to see firsthand if this project is still going anywhere.