They were always tied...SG was Oceans story, he just had someone else doing the renders and the code. They were always connected and part of the same story though which is why Ocean didn't want SG to die (though I'll agree WiAb is the better imo and should perhaps have been finished first...but ho hum).
They were never tied, ever. They were in someone else their hand, Ocean only was there to help them out and guide them but the games were never related or tied to or whatsoever in any shape or form. They only got tied after that other person abandoned it, matter of fact the original first 2 chapters of that were a whole lot different compared to what it is now.
The first 2 chapters of that was out when the original WiAB was around chapter 5 of camping trip after that was getting rewritten and reworked twice over.
After he full on decided to take his sweet time with chapter 6 WiAB where we only get half of the works because the original plan was to rework the previous chapters 1 by 1 while continuing the chapters with new releases.
It was only AFTER he decided to fully rework SG that he also decided to discard the whole WiAB and give that one a full reboot as well. I was here since his first release including when he took it over, including when people got worried about how this would affect his releases. They were NEVER connected at the start. That was only a thing after he got it in his hands on it and decided he was going to do a full reboot on both games.
Hell he was super active back in the day on this forum but when push came to it and he realized he was biting more then he could chew on and after promising and saying it would not effect the schedules only to realize it DID in fact effect the schedules is when he decided to be less active on the forums.
so let me repeat that for you, Before he took it over.. they were never connected.. ever.
his only capacity with the other game was as a mentor to the other person, however that person bailed and he decided to take it over. Matter of fact he did not even like the story or the design or even what was presented.
EDIT : Also saying that the renders were Ocean's also is where you are absolutely wrong, they were not, again he was only there for mentor and advice capacity. The renders and all the works were of the original owner and when ocean took it over he scrapped ALL the characters because they were not up to his standard of rendering. Matter of fact he was absolutely disgusted by them.