The funniest thing about this game is what they did release on Steam really is no more than a game demo. Can't imagine most developers releasing a game on Steam in demo mode is asking full price for it though. That's where I come with why isn't the developer releasing regular updates for it on Steam.
Believe me or not however Steam pretty much doesn't care about that stuff. You can make something that can barely be considered a game and post it on steam if you're willing to pay them the 100$ I think it was.
While sure they could release in multiple updates however let me ask you what would be the point in that. Assuming the next update will include cooking and sex and the story. The patch wouldn't really add much content for the players to go thogh which from my experience at least tends to cause more backlash than is worth it in the long run. Then again they complain either way.
While I don't know what your stance on Taiwan being as part of China I still see it as a country however politics aside if they really were in China they'd probably be in jail since China has a strict porn policy. They're from Taiwan while I get that google tends to just translate under Chinese since the only difference is that mainland China uses Simplified Chinese while Taiwan uses Traditional Chinese writing.
While I'm unsure of your regional pricing however for Europe it's 14.99€ which, to be honest, doesn't even feel like a full price while it might be it's a bit underpriced if it will be the final price. I've seen plenty of early access or just games in general that offered much less and demanded more for purchase.
Now if one is to assume that 1000 people bought the game on Steam and if you take into account that roughly ~11€ would be the middle ground they earn 7700€ after steam cuts their 30% and not sure how taxes are handled in Taiwan assuming roughly ~6200 after taxes. I assume they have roughly enough to pay one person their minimum wage for maybe 8-9 months rough guess from Patreon is that they probably earn enough to pay 1-2 people their wage assuming the majority of the subs aren't on 1$. Then again they only do a single post a month to probably make sure that people remain subbed.
Now, this is just a guess however based on what you wrote last if I were to assume they probably have no one from a business background and are most likely just primarily covering the coding and art department maybe audio, and outsource the rest which is beyond common in indie game development space. Then again no real way of knowing since I at least am unable to find any trace of that company apart from Itch.io profile.
Then again that would be just my opinion as a hobby/freelance game developer. To be seen when an update is released I guess.
But seriously I do hope they invest a little money and hack get voice acting from Cybervoice or Replica even those AI voices would sound better than the ones currently in the game. Somewhat wouldn't even mind Japanese voice actors doing broken English hahaha.
Feel free to take it with a grain of salt I'm just hoping they're or will become a decent studio.
Wrote it partly seriously and partly not so seriously. It was meant as a joke. However, I was serious if it were about Summertime Saga. I still find it funny how they claim to have 3 more projects lined up on their website after this one is complete yet it's not looking like it will be completed for years until they're done milking the hell out of it. Can't say how it is on other projects however I would mostly just consider comparing the ones that actually have drawn art and not Daz content which would make the majority of them.
Either way my point is working on a game inside RenPy which is primarily meant for VN type of games compared to working on a 3D game inside Unreal Engine requires quite different skills and most often than not quite a few more people. Especially needing quite a good computer ... totally not looking at you Unreal Engine 5 I need a new GPU to use that damn thing normally ...
