So people who make $100,000+/year have no right to be upset that they're losing thousands of dollars due to piracy? You wouldn't complain if you made $100,000+/year and I stole whatever amount of money you made over the 100K benchmark?
I would be upset something was being stolen from me, but as a software developer I would expect the majority of people are going to pirate my software. That goes double if I was creating porn content. Very few people are willing to pay for porn unless they have niche fetishes that aren't being addressed for free (which I would consider this game a niche fetish/market).
However, I absolutely wouldn't complain about piracy or income to supporters, fans, or any form of public forum. Whenever a developer gets involved in piracy/money discussion they almost always end up looking bad to everyone who isn't a hardcore supporter. There's also a huge difference between saying things like "I'm sad to see this leaked again, it was a lot of work. Please consider supporting me if you enjoy the game." and basically helping brew fanbase hate trains against potential future supporters.
I think everybody can agree the track record of adult games is horrible, so people pirating the game is to be expected, the fact this game is making this much money after 2 1/2 years probably puts it in the top .1% of indie porn games. Would he be making more if it wasn't for piracy? Absolutely. But so would literally every other software creator out there. It's a pointless thing to complain about as a creator.
Think about it this way. A person who makes $100,000/year walks into a room full of people who make $25,000/year. The person who makes $100,000/year then goes on a rant about how he's not making enough money. He's not being rude or talking down to anyone, however every other person in that room is still going to be very annoyed with that person. That's just how society works.
The fact is, Selebus is making plenty. Even if he was making half of what he currently is, it shouldn't affect anything and he should be living comfortably. His recent post to SS makes it seem like he's barely getting by with using phrases like "worryingly unsustainable ". It just feels scummy because if $100k/year is unsustainable then what the hell am I doing with my life? The guy needs a lifestyle change if that's the case because he clearly has way too many expenses.
Also, this makes me doubt the future of the game as a whole. If $100k/year is nearing unsustainable for him then what happens to the game when he goes down to $50k/year? I just don't see him maintaining $100k/year for the next 5+ years and that's seemingly how long the game's development will be with all this filler. Nothing sucks more than spending hundreds of dollars on a project just to wake up one day to another developer saying "Game is cancelled due to X/Y/Z".
For the record, I still think this is the best overall game on F95. I don't pirate it, I wait for the free version and play it with the walkthrough mod. I already paid over $100 for the game when it was on Patreon and already said what it would take for me to become a subscriber again. Existing Koikatsu Character Cards/Scenes. He could even release only a couple girls/scenes every month to keep people subscribed for longer. There's also THOUSANDS of fan request scenes already made that he could slowly release for VR users. Throw them on a $20/month tier, release like 2 scenes a week to keep subs up, huge long term incentive in my eyes, and it takes literally zero effort on his part (uses already made content).
