Because it's not completely abandoned, he occasionally might plan to work on some updates. He sure takes his time though, and the fees aren't much.

There's a lot that goes into owning a company/business... while I'm sure this post was supposed to be an own as this game is upsetting to a lot of people- but imagine someone standing right next to you when you take a $#!* criticizing how you fold your toilet paper before wiping. There's a guy drooling on you asking you every 5 minutes on why you take a poop the way you do. Then he picks it up, sniffs it, gives it a little lick. "This is what I waited for?" He proclaims. Imagine that. Sometimes we need to accept that someone took an L and move on... don't be that kid in highschool that keeps reminding someone of something they did in pre-school- "remember when you sh!t your pants and you cried!? LOL!!!" It's over. This game is an attempt at a good idea, and it fell short... not every project is a home run. All I wanted to do was to look at the discussions for this game and the very first post made me upset... good bye Jon's fan club!!!

I'll leave you fan boys to it. Here are a few more interesting things.

- last update on the website 4/10/2020 . No mention he is working on anything. The security certificate on the website is expired which means he's not paying attention to it
https://www.atthegatesgame.com/news/v14-diplomacy-design-plan

- his non ATG twitter he's actively talking to ppl, but nothing on ATG. He does have time to congratulate the people at Paradox who took a chance on hiring him, then he promptly quit on them. The creative differences were that he's washed up
https://twitter.com/JonShaferDesign/with_replies?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-11-17-jon-shafer-leaves-paradox-over-creative-differences

- The @conifergames twitter is abandoned
https://twitter.com/ConiferGames/with_replies

Here are 2 more things:
1. his quick bio on twitter uses the phrase, "fortune favors the bold." It's not bold to take $100k from people on KS, release a broken game 6 years late, then do 4 updates that break it further, then pretend the game doesn't exist.

2. He still uses Civ 5 as his resume as of this month. Civ 5 was released in 2010. He also mentions owning Conifer games, but does not take credit for ATG. In the world of gaming 11 years is a lifetime to have no accomplishments.

I'm somewhere in-between, to be honest. Jon did a poor job of releasing this game, but at the end of the day he does throw out an update once in a long while. At the same time it's not an acceptable product, but the reviews speak for themselves. I'm glad at least v1.4 was released because the game became A LOT better. Maybe we'll see a 1.5 this year?

On a side note I found this interview with Jon about his roadmap of ATG and his Steam sales:
https://youtu.be/68aGADEniwM?t=38

stop obsessing and go play something else