I think you're seeing a couple things.
- Confirmation bias- you're concerned about a trend so you're more likely to notice it elsewhere.
- Maturation of Patreon economy- Patreon as a portal for funding adult games has been around long enough now that I think we're seeing the maturation of the economic model. And that model is showing many shortcomings. Creators who learned of Patreon three or four years ago and jumped onboard, are now reaching a point of exhaustion. I think there's a collective coincidence where after three or so years developers start getting tired of their projects.
- COVID Burnout- Coupled with the maturation of the Patreon economy, the last two years saw an explosion in attention (and profit) for creators. For example, immediately following the shutdown in March 2020, F95 experienced a dramatic rise in new members. For creators, this opened up a vast new captive audience. This new audience wasn't only captive in their home, they were also deeply engaged. Correspondingly, devs now had fewer distractions and could focus on their games. But now, almost two full years later, I think we're seeing COVID burnout. Audiences are ferociously engaged, and the shine of the games has worn off. Now more is being demanded from the devs at a time when they're burnt out.
I really think 2 and 3 are the main culprits of what you're seeing. Without COVID burnout, we would probably still be seeing a lot of slowdown in the AVG market because of natural burnout. But considering the last two years, I think you're seeing an even higher degree of burnout than normal. So it feels like all of these great games are collapsing at the same time, and I think there's at least some truth to that. It may not be as severe as we think, but certainly some of the most highly regarded games on this forum are struggling to release new material. This isn't just a coincidence, I think there's probably a shelf life to every AVG before burnout sets in and the last two years have made the burnout more extreme.
This thread was started in July of 2018, so it's more than three and a half years old. Considering that there are still many years of development in front of the game, I think we're seeing a natural burnout from Stoper. Some will call this milking, but I don't see it that way. I think most devs
want to finish their games, but they didn't plan ahead very well and are simply too burnt out to carry on. There's a lesson here for future devs, try to keep your games to something that can be completed in 36 months.