There's a curious psychological effect where talking about your plans and receiving anticipatory praise can decrease motivation.
It's part of the general way that extrinsic motivations poison intrinsic motivations.
Shipping is hard.
It's part of the general way that extrinsic motivations poison intrinsic motivations.
Shipping is hard.
At this point, eclipsing the story of "the cool game that never shipped" with an actual game is a very high bar indeed.
I think you have to be pretty motivated to work on an unreleased game for a decade (and make consistent progress over that period). I think doubting the team's motivations, intrinsic or otherwise, is misplaced here.
Working on a project essentially in private for a long time can be really draining to the motivations. Being able to be a bit open about parts of it can help a lot with motivation for development.
Yes there are possible second-order effects of games getting warped depending on external factors, but I don't see any evidence of that here. The team is making progress towards making a game they want to make.