I actually sort of see it as the opposite problem. S2 of SAO is just really boring and there isn't a lot there that sets up good payoffs that are natural and intricately woven in. So yes, there's a struggle with abridging Season 2, but I think it's less because they don't have any ideas and more that Alfiehm is so fucking disconnected from the original story despite being the direct sequel that is basically necessitates inventing new things to give a shit about. Like, in the actual show proper, most of the arc is dicking around in a game and with characters no one would logically give two shits about meanwhile hanging the shit people actually were interested in dangling on a thread named "Asuna" and said "If you watch, this might become important again."
I'm not SomethingWitty, but I definitely don't have the stones to want to touch such a boring piece of anime trash with my bare hands. And it's not like SAO is done with having really stupid things to make fun of (Oh God, make it to Gun Gail please.), I think in combination with the fact that SomethingWitty is a bunch of blokes over the internet all over the world making an Abridged Series together coupled with the reality that, yes, unlike pussy-ass Team Four Star, they genuinely are making a better show than SAO by deliberately taking a shit all over it, I can understand what it is that's keeping them from uploading much at one time.
I mean, fucking hell, with all the moping about how DBZ Abridged aged like milk, it says something that by comparison SAO Abridged is still pretty damn funny. I went and did a rewatch of Season One and it holds up soooooooooooooooooo much better than 90% of what TFS has put out. (And most of that is because Episodes 1-8 of Hellsing Abridged are still a good watch. Shame about that ending though.)
Essentially this. ALO - I think is the arc name? - is considered the worst arc in a series that is already dimly looked upon for a good reason. To make a successful parody in the vein of an abridged series you tend to need a sweet spot of quality where you can mock the flaws in it but still enjoy something built with it. Cell saga suffered in DBZA because TFS were such big nerd fans of it that they no longer were willing to mock and make fun of it the way they needed to. ALO is on the opposite end of the spectrum - probably - where it's so unpleasant to go through it's hard to make it funny. SomethingWitty is also attempting a thing that the original author never bothers with, and trying to carry over some consistency in character behavior and consequences of prior actions, with Kirito's continued trauma and treating Asuna as his wife and not just like a cute girl he hopes to one day dick in IRL. Mixing 'tell the story better' with 'tell the story funny' is a good way to burn out fast.
I will never understand why TFS decided to buy an office space where they could all be together to dub shit and then proceeded to do nothing with it.
I mean I know why they did it, but it's more why did they not make any use of the fact that they were together in one spot. Instead electing to use it for an Office parody and for continuing to dub (CGI) DragonBall shit and a whole litany of abandoned shows. Yeah Kaiser cites COVID-19 as the main reason for not doing anything with it right now, but even before then this was a problem. They bought an office on the success of abridging someone else's property, yet even when they stopped doing the thing that got them that success but not really, they couldn't even use the sound booths for more studio recordings like the Hells dub to recoup costs? Or try to use the recording space to collaborate with similar studios in Texas, or even other Abridgers? Or do fucking anything aside from shittier DB now that all their Abridged projects are finished?
If your home equipment is just as good as the studio equipment, then what's the point of having the studio?
Other than being used as a big boy YouTuber status symbol, obviously.
The studio was opened for the purpose of expanding DBZA - they could pay their VAs more conveniently and lure in more VAs if they had a studio, as well as have a central hub that VAs could theoretically move out to be nearer to, avoiding the schedule conflicts they suffered from, and it was obviously a fandub dream to own their own studio. You also have to remember - or know, if you didn't keep up at the time - that the studio purchase was a perk that came with
ten thousand dollars a month on Patreon. "We will buy our own studio to use" makes a little more sense as an outrageous goal when you realize the sheer amount of money they were demanding from their fans to get that level. If I recall, they peaked at $12k a month, but it's difficult to say because Patreon started messing with how it displayed monthly income around that time and makes it hard to judge.
They invited Chris Sabat to their studio welcome party, so I do believe they thought opening the studio would open the door to getting both more professional VAs in their works and getting more professional VA work themselves (because Funimation itself doesn't really have a recording studio and relies on Sabat's, so TFS having another one in Texas would be theoretically a big deal). The problem is that while all the text on the Patreon said "This will never speed up the production of DBZA videos" everyone generally still had the expectation that if TFS could turn it into their home business it would speed up the production of DBZA videos. And then it didn't, because the bottleneck in speed was
always just Kaiser, who could have a million dollars a month and still wouldn't speed up because he'd convinced himself that nobody could edit DBZA except him. Instead the studio just got used for lets play and fan mail videos. The former of which was held up by the DBZ games and Nuzlocke runs and ran out of much of its steam when they ran out of DBZ games and the Nuzlocke shifted to styles people didn't like (and they cheated). The latter of which they inexplicably quit after a couple weeks, so either got overwhelmed by too many gifts or spooked by some weird/illegal ones.
When they dropped DBZA they probably assumed keeping the studio would make creating their OC much cheaper because it would reduce the overhead costs of doing so, but none of their OC has been successful.
Very likely they either can't pay studio rent or are running it at a loss and taking a big chunk of whatever merch sales they still make to keep it open. They can blame the coof for it, but the size of the studio + and their remaining employee list has such a disparity they probably could continue operating it just fine no matter what the regulations are, especially in Texas in 2022. They'll probably quietly let it go and 'downsize' to a smaller, temporary studio that they'll also be forced to quickly drop and go back to doing recording in soundproofed rooms in their houses. If they maintain a studio it will be the kind most youtubers have, which is just a big empty office, warehouse, or rental home they travel to and record so it's cleaner and quieter than their actual homes. Much cheaper than the kind they have right now.