You make a lot of great points that I completely agree with. Yes, project management is a completely different beast that Ocean may not be as good as, and the whole quality of the project may suffer for it. Yes, finding good hardworking people is not as easy as it may seem from a distance, especially for something as niche as a crowdfunded AVN. The last point is where we start to disagree, but it's more a matter of opinion than anything we can objectively nail down.
You argue that an artist who has released their work to the public has the liberty to persue their work at their own pace in their own way. I would argue that the second the artist has chosen to make their work public they have taken on a responsibility towards their consumers. If by some miracle the game is finished at one point and I get to consume it whole I would not be doing so in a vacuum. It would be done in the context of how long it took to be made, how the artists has communicated throughout, what promises they made and how will they were kept and so on.
If he had chosen to develop it in private then release it finished, then sure. Go nuts. I will admit that that is financially unfeasible and practically impossible without some bankrolling, but that doesn't change the current reality of the situation. I was just trying to rub one out to some 3D girls, I found this game that had great reviews and apparently a really good story, I went through it and tried it out and loved it. Now I'm emotionally invested. I want the artist to deliver a good product in their own time and to their own standards, but withen reason.
You talked, rightfully I may add, about the practical difficulties of expediting the process and by your own admission it would be difficult but not impossible. I believe Ocean has an obligation to, at the very least, try to overcome these difficulties.
But all of that isn't even my mine gripe. I will excuse a failure of team and resource management. But the constant self inflicted setbacks are quite honestly infuriating. SG on its own is a mammoth undertaking, and he decides to develop another game concurrently? How does that make sense? Prioritizing remakes over story progression? That's like falling into the trap of trying to optimize your code too early in the development cycle.
I love this game. I love his evident technical skill. I admire his commitment to good communication with the audience. I admire his artistic integrity. The naivety of some of his choices are what bother me.
Just a few thoughts for you:
Ocean does have others who work for him - I can't speak to the # of hours of work/week, but he regularly mentions having help in his dev logs.
He also hires freelancers to do major work for him - two examples:
The track and field where the night training occurs is good freelancer work.
Ocean hired a freelancer to code the phone and this person dropped the ball requiring Ocean to step in and do major coding himself (slowing down development of CH 5 - mentioned in at least one dev log).
He is developing SG and WIAB concurrently at least in part to combat burnout.
If this is what he needs to avoid burnout - I Absolutely support it.
What may feel like a slowdown now is related to the rework of early chapters of SG and polishing the entirety of SG Season 1 so it can be released on Steam.
A great Steam release is very important from a resourcing perspective - this will help drive hardware improvements and major music purchases - both key to continued success in developing Season 2 and beyond.
You may not have seen a lot of this information in prior posts - it is spread out over posts for > 1 year, so I am just touching on the highlights, but he is doing a great deal to advance SG.
His vision for SG is Grand - no doubt; he is the most ambitious developer I support with $. Given his creative abilities, commitment to communication, commitment to reinvesting in the ability to tell the SG and WIAB stories well (this includes hardware & software upgrades and learning how to maximize efforts with both, quality music acquisition, and even taking additional English classes to improve his writing), and willingness to team with others, I have not regretted a single minute spent enjoying SG or a single $ spent supporting him.
Cheers!!
