Obviously not openly admitted...who would.
As I said, I know a lot about the indie AVN scene. So, why DPC isn't A.O.A. dev? Apart from what I already told you (bad coding, bad writing and so), DPC, as any other smart indie dev, wouldn't do 2 games at the same time. Why? Because it costs you time and money.
Here it is how AVN indie devs work: you open a Patreon account (or SubscribeStar, more and more recently), you release your demo/0.1 or whatever you call your first release, and you plead F95 admins to list your game. You have 0 patrons on Patreon and for getting to at least to 100, which isn't that high btw., you need a GREAT game and patience of at least a month or two. Now, 95% of all devs will never get to 1.000 patrons - and even that number is not that big deal - you'll earn probably around $2.500 and Patreon will take a percentage of that.
Now, A.O.A. dev probably never reached 1.000 patrons or even if he did, he started losing them fairly quickly after the time gap between updates become longer and longer. Just checked the game - he had 5 releases in less than 2 years.
DrPinkCake has 15.000 patrons. Think about it. 15.000 people paying at least 1$ waiting for a new BaDIk release. No, definitely he wouldn't bother starting the new game under the new name from the zero (literally).
My Acting Lesson saves were wiped entirely, no bugs my ass.
It was his first game, although I never had any issues but I didn't play it for almost 4 or 5 years.
I noticed this, the fact I noticed it just trying to load it without steam (which it prevented) tells me it not all that grand of a trick though. I would have to assume anyone more familiar with the ren'py formatting would likely be able to get around it pretty simply. I'm obviously not that person, but if the format seemed odd to me in the loading files, I have to assume someone would be able to break it without much hassle.
Yeah, it isn't that big deal for anyone with some knowledge of Ren'Py or Python but an average player doesn't have that knowledge.
That was actually my assumption here, I can't say that invested in the smut world to argue with you...but it seemed a little off to me. You wouldn't copy a more respected devs work (Maya as you said) for some shitty no name project which you then abandoned....something smells fishy here, you have to admit that. Even on F95 they state comments about Being A Dik will be removed lol.
Yes, you would copy settings, girls and the story from a highly successful game if you are the new dev and you want easy money - hence why there is a warning "not to mention BaDIK in that thread"... and in many other college-based games - because players tend to compare EVERY such game with BaDIK. You can check the College Kings thread and you'll see the same thing.
And abandonment... Well, that is the destiny of probably more than half of all indie AVNs. Some devs just "burn" - you can recognize such devs from the start - they'll release new updates with lots of content almost every few weeks, then monthly, every three months... And they'll burn in less than a year. Or learn how to slow down.
There are deaths. I knew two great guys who died. One of them had a team and his team continued after his death, even dedicating the game to his memory.
Then you have "quick rich" guys - one punk said he'll abandon his game if he doesn't reach 500 patrons by 0.4 release. Remember how I mention it's hard to get patrons? His game was good both visually and story-wise but you can't get those numbers in just 8 months with your first game! He did that and then, later, he started another game but everyone flooded it with negative reviews because of what he did.
I don't know when TLGGAMES abandoned his game but if he did it recently and he closed his Patreon, he did the most honourable thing possible.
See... Patrons are paying those devs every month to continue their work. They can give up on game development any time they want and any person who knows how that indie AVN scene works wouldn't say a word. He closed his Patreon and nobody will pay him for doing nothing... unlike what happened with "milkers".
I remember two notable cases. One of them is the guy that was a bigger name than DPC now - in fact, DPC was just working on his first game when that guy was over 10.000 patrons (even over 20.000 later on). Never liked his games but he was popular. And then he started slowing down. Now, for us who weren't fans, it was obvious it was just a matter of time before he'll abandon his game dev career. He released just 2 updates in a year and then 1 in 18 months... And nothing for the next 12 months. All the while, his Patreon was working. He was milking monthly over 20.000 people until he finally closed the account. Now - that's a scammer! He had 3 or 4 games completed before the last one but he will always be remembered for milking people's money for over 3 years doing absolutely nothing.
Or another scammer who released 4 updates, with mostly positive reviews, and then went on hiatus for the next 2 or 3 years, milking $500 -$600, and then he returned like nothing happened - except people recognized him for what he is.
So, no, DPC doesn't have anything to do with A.O.A. and you'll be still seeing that "no talk about BaDIK" on every thread with the game similar to BaDIK. And DPC will stay a professional, solid programmer and writer, albeit a greedy and disrespectful piece of shit.