as i said nobody is forcing people to give money to them it's your choiche, it can be a non usual method asking for money to help a project grow before showing a demo but this is his first game and maybe he just need to learn how to advertise his game too, like a cars seller that want to sell you a car.Tbf they have all right to call them scammers for asking for money with no project being out, there's high risk with no reward, but I check up to see what progress has been made once in a while. It has been a month now since he said anything (at least on f95) maybe they have updates on their twitter and substar, but I'll just let them do their thing if it's fake it's fake who cares.
Anyway look at the subscribestar page for pots etc primarly and i'll say once again, i'll wait for a demo before judge their work.
Obviously pople can do want they want, believe that he's a scammer etc but before doing any judgement i would wait for a demo.