The problem is the unmaintainable code. The game doesn't take that long because of its scope, it's not exactly Dwarf Fortress.
If I remember correctly the code got leaked at some point and it wasn't a fun time for the developer.
It seems to me the dev was a beginner with a popular idea, leading to random people on the internet giving him money to work for a long time on a codebase that was too large for his experience and should have been thrown away and rewritten years ago.
Hate speech in modern use is attested by 1990. The term is found in a translation, published in 1898, of the Anglo-Saxon poem called "The Fall of the Angels," telling of Satan's revolt, where it renders Anglo-Saxon hetespraece:
Dear was he to our Lord; but it could not be hidden
That his angel began to be proud,
Lifted himself against his Leader, sought hate-speech,
Words of boasting against him, and would not serve God.
["Education," vol. xviii, No. 6, Feb. 1898]
Faith based term, people are using politically recently.