Facts were compiled weeks ago by some bored user who scanned the thread looking for 'patron-only posts' posted since 2019 and leaked here that contained promises and/or excuses from Dev. It's a fun read if you are not emotionally (or financially) involved in this story, and it's not even updated with the most recent ones. Most of those posts are now gone from BD's official channels, by the way, meaning that his past record of unfulfilled promises is no longer there anymore for new patrons to see: if not for this thread, newcomers would never know how many times this basketball match has been announced as something imminent, then 'tweaked', then postponed, rinse and repeat. When I'm pondering whether I should support a dev whose work I like, I definitely take a look at the available info in his official channels to see how reliable and consistent he is, how he communicates with his patrons, how often updates are actually released and how he tackles the issues that inevitably arise when you're developing a solo project for that long. But BD is deleting that key info under the pretense of it 'not being accurate or relevant anymore' so that patrons can only find his latest excuse and the currently planned date of release. This is a fact; in my opinion, this is also dishonest and unfair to your potential backers, and I would never support a dev doing that -if I somehow manage to know he's doing that, of course. That's not how you should manage your main source of income if you don't want to look like a scammer.
There was I time I said in this very same thread that I didn't really like the game (after the original day 5 or so I realized it had turned into something I just didn't like), but I did love the way BD was doing it, so I kept translating it into Spanish (and not a garbage MTL, mind you; it was a proper hand-made translation). He was talkative, he seemed committed, and he paused pledges whenever he failed to deliver an update. Between 2020 and 2021, pledges were paused for more months than not. Some people were already bashing him for not delivering, but I still defended him because, even though his words and promises felt mostly empty without an actual update, his actions seemed honest: after all, he was rejecting a large sum of money he could have easily cashed in. For that reason, after the failed 2k render update from last year, I was still willing to accept his excuses as I could really see how you can make so many renders, then start second-guessing yourself, then start tweaking them, then end up having way fewer usable renders than your initial batch. And, even if his words were a lie, there was no harm done because he wasn't charging his patrons. I even defended his decision of kicking out patrons who were too harsh in their criticism: paying money doesn't give you the right to be an ass, even if you feel you're right on your claims. There's always a better and more polite way to go about it, and devs shouldn't really stand that kind of toxic behavior.
And that was when he started to charge again, month after month, without delivering what he kept promising. That's when even mods choose to switch sides and started to mock him too instead of duly defending this once honest-looking dev.
At that point, as I couldn't really tell whether he was still genuine or just leading us on (and no one can tell, actually, because no one here lives in his head), I made a silent exit and moved on, although I'd still take a look every once in a while to see how things were going (spoiler: not good). But no matter what I actually think about his excuses, no matter what I think of this Mackenzie and her role, there's still a chance all that he says is true, and I wouldn't like to be the umpteenth guy talking shit about him if that's the case. There's nothing I'd get from doing that, I can get my daily dose of social acceptance anywhere else and by doing something more productive than bashing a dev I'd never support. But I can totally understand other people using this thread as their own cruel playground. It's only human, sadly. There's not really anyone here to hurt anymore, but some uninformed users. If you just discovered this game and were hoping for a healthy place to talk about it, I'm sorry for you, but there's just too much shit happening in the last couple of years to prevent the thread from derailing. It was this happy place, once. Now it just can't be that place ever again. BD and his choices have way too much to do with that, and that's also a fact. You can't just expect that a few dozen people out of thousands of players won't be talking shit about you: it happens when you actually deliver, so for sure it's gonna happen when you don't. It might not be nice to look at, but it's just the way it is.
Lastly, for the guy asking if the duckfaces are a kind of trolling from BD, could someone please tell me if the game still closes if you name Jamie 'Duckface' right at the start? He's been trolling his players since their very first feedback. It was funny back then, now it looks like a terrible move, yet he keeps doubling down on it. I guess it's just the way he is.