Can pirating help a game? Sure, sometimes, word of mouth advertising and all that, for good/high quality games. Word of mouth backfires on mediocre/crappy games though and they of course lose $ as a result of pirating. This, so far, as been a good game and has probably benefited overall.
That said he, as a content creator/author, has not only the right but the responsibility to protect his intellectual property. If he fails to do so in many areas he would, essentially, legally forfeit any copyright or claim to the materials he created. Further with his pricing scheme in his Patreon he doesn't have to find a way to protect his game permanently, he just needs to find a way to keep it from being hacked/cracked for more than 5-7 days so that those who pay $40 feel justified in getting their content earlier than those paying $5, and those paying $5 feel satisfied they got it before it was cracked/broken/hacked.
If he can find a way to keep his game secure for a week+ from first release he'll be able to maximise his profits, keep his investors satisfied that they are receiving what they're paying for, and still benefit from piracy word-of-mouth advertising once the game get's hacked and released widely, even though he hadn't "intended" for it to be available for non-patrons.
Ultimately, in this sort of instance, overly aggressive piracy can backfire and prevent the creation/development of new or higher quality content as content creators need to spend more money and time securing their property rights that could be better directed towards content creation, and potentially shut down the entire process. As with anything it's a balancing act, and the arguments that piracy is somehow morally justified or ethical are as hypocritical as claims that content will never be pirated.