Yes, but the dev was obviously surprised by the growing number of people that didn't quite like the direction of the game. You see, the vast majority of H-action games feature ryona and/or rape upon defeat. Either you get knocked down, play a struggle minigame before the sex actually starts or you get to view a scene upon defeat. Which means that you can play through the game without the protag suffering canonically - it's about fapping to rape and such with a good conscience, so to speak.
It's obviously up to the dev to make decisions how the game should work out in the end but just as a player is not entitled to a game that's tailored to him the dev isn't entitled to the players liking the game. Rape and ryona already is a niche genre and unless the dev is more interested in his own artistic vision than sales it's not a bad idea to listen to some of the feedback, methinks. There's obviously a relevant number of people that like the content, just not that it's canon, as weird as that may sound.