I'd say yes. I e-mailed Zear on the 21st February 2018 and have received no response. The e-mail goes as follows:
Hello Zear,
As someone who bought into the GCW Zero, I am wondering if you knew what happened to it considering you are a major contributor to the project.
I was also wondering what happened to the Unnamed Monkey Game, is it still in development? Do you have further plans for it such as releasing it on itch.io
or Steam (or GOG.com further along down the line)?
Did they die off or is something else planned?
I like your work,
Hal Motley
Now I appreciate that Zear is probably a busy guy and responding to an e-mail out of thin air isn't much of a priority, but a lack of response feels like the verification of the idea that everybody has given up on the little MIPS handheld. Particularly when Zear alone really shaped the device (thank you Zear).
In my opinion it would be awesome if the schematics for GCW-Zero were publically released, but my issue was the ergonomics of the device. The GCW-Zero wasn't a conformable device, ontop of the fact it makes the Raspberry Pi 3 look powerful.
As an idealist, I'd ideally like to see the open-source games that made the GCW-Zero amazing ported over to Retroarch. I'd also request that Zear consider open-source the Unamed Monkey Game (UMG) if it's no-longer being worked on. I have thrown $5 towards a bounty (
https://www.bountysource.com/issues/48236003-new-core-for-solarus-engine) to port Solarus over which is a start, as well as creating a suggestion thread
https://forums.libretro.com/t/adding-gcw-zero-games/9692 of games I'd like ported. I think with more people requesting this sort of action and more dollars in bounty donations, the more likely the games will appear on Retroarch's catalogue and therefore be playable on just about anything.