Gentlemen, if you have supported a developer, you haven't done a bad thing.
In fact, you all should be proud and to hell with the narrative that the dev should be supported only if he completes a game. The journey is what matters and sometimes it comes to an abrupt end. We move.
I disagree, when you financially support someone and nothing comes of it that means you wasted your money. Get burned enough and the development community loses out on the support of people who would be generous if they could trust that they'd see a return on their "investment".
I have supported quite a few games here on Patreon, and I am always quite disappointed when they are unceremoniously abandoned. It has made me think twice about supporting games I like. I still do it, but less than before, and I am more quick to pull support once the dev transitions from a release every 1-3 months, to one release every 9-12 months (many, many devs).
I get that it helps to support devs, hell almost none of the games here would exist if people didn't throw the dice and support games after the first release, in hopes the dev will continue.
However, I can understand a dev working for a couple of months, and deciding its more work than he thought, or he isn't getting enough money for his time, and decide to abandon it (Reincarnotica).
What really bothers me, though, is when devs start slow walking their games to drag it out forever, once they hit the few thousand a month range. Some devs release consistently, even though they have wide support, and just make their next game when they are done (the devs I listed in my previous post). Others, we all know who they are, decide why work when they can get almost the same income for doing next to nothing, and just keep up with the endless "dog ate my homework" excuses. Obviously there are exceptions when a dev is truly struck with a serious illness, though nobody can know if he is being truthful, but most of the time it happens suspiciously once they hit a critical mass of support where they can just stop and the supporters keep funding for years afterward.
Maybe I am old fashioned, but I think once a dev builds a following and collects a sizable monthly income from a large group of fans, he owes it to his fans and supporters to provide steady releases at a reasonable 1-3 month schedule, maybe a bit more in the unusual cases where the releases are very sophisticated and substantial (Philly or DPC). It may not be in Patreon's contract (it isn't), but devs should strive to be ethical when receiving payment, and have personal integrity and at least release something at regular intervals. Despite what is in the official Patreon fine print, those that donate support the dev in the expectation that the game they support will eventually be completed, at a reasonable schedule.
And then we have cases like AOA Academy, where TLG just drops off the Earth from one day to the next, a la Chainzero with Connected, and many others from my previous list . Sure, it could be something extreme like sudden disabling illness or death, but who are we kidding. It is a 95% chance the dev just said "Screw my Fans", and took the money and run. If someone dies or becomes critically ill, the last thing on the minds of their loved ones is "I better hurry up and close their Patreon account the same day, and quit their Discord. Why would they stop the money flowing? It certainly wouldn't be top priority, even if they had the all the dev's login info, which is also not a given.
Nobody is forced to complete their games, but if a dev is going to quit you owe the fans some kind of reasonable explanation, from the heart. Even if it is just, "It has taken a lot of thought, but the game took a lot more time than I expected, and it didn't get the financial support I had hoped to get to pay for my time and assets needed, so I am going to rethink my career as a part-time game developer and pause or stop work on my game. Thanks to all my fans for the support, it meant a lot to me, and I'm sorry it turned out like this."
As a fan, I would be disappointed, but understand. However, unfortunately, very few devs are stand-up-guys and do this. They rather just ghost all their fans rather than take a few minutes to give an honest explanation, and that is very disappointing as a fan and sometimes supporter to see devs treat their audience like this.
