I think that I didn't make my view clear here.
I am not making an excuse for his lack of transparency or progress. What I'm saying is that he was never a fully professional game creator. My suspicion is that he "learned on his way", but eventually realized that what he openly proposed was not feasible by himself.
I should also state that I hate Patreon and sub systems like that. We all look at the number of Patreon supporters and equate that number to his "professionalism" and how producing these games is his actual job. But that is simply false association. His number of Patreon supporters only have to do with the number of H-games he has released thus far and how many people liked them enough to "support his future projects". For all we know, ICSTOR is some guy who actually does graphics for an ads company during the day and spends some time at night and weekends working on his H-game. We have no idea what his real job is and Patreon (as a company) has no reason to shut him down since they're getting a portion of the money his subs are giving to him. Does Patreon send an auditor to his house to watch him work on his Patreon project? Of course not, Patreon is just a donation platform that happens to take a portion of the donations. They are a third party that makes a nice website, help collect money and write up tax statements and that's all.
This is why I suspect that producing these games isn't ICSTOR's real job.
These aren't YouTube subs, every Patreon supporter is paying him a minimum of $1 a month. 5500 of those adds up very quickly. Nobody is trudging to a job every day or putting up with bosses and deadlines when they've got a side-hustle making them $150-300k a year that lets them work whenever they feel like it. Patreon takes about
You must be registered to see the links
between platform fees and payment processing fees, but the rest goes straight to him. Being a "professional" means that you do it for a living; it has no reflection of how good you actually are at it.
And
ICSTOR himself has stated that this is a full-time job. Straight off his page:
He's fulfilled two goals past that, both of which involved hiring additional team members that he's referenced in Patreon posts over the past couple of years. Hell, we've had one of them comment in this very thread about being contracted for doing Judy renders! ICSTOR isn't someone's employee, he's his own boss. I do agree with you that he's effectively a talented amateur who unexpectedly got big and probably ran out of ideas, but he certainly hasn't retreated back to a prior career. He's just....coasting until the money runs out and the ride ends.
