About the patrons not admitting that they could have been scammed and keep justifying their investment with an even greater zeal instead of cutting their losses... I think i read this behavior somewhere before, it's called "sunk cost fallacy"
EDIT: ok i have reread & refresh my memory, if i have to make a metaphor it's basically the same feeling when you already bought an expensive, long queue, hard-earned movie ticket but the movie turns out to be shit.. and since you have sunk so much time, money, and energy to acquire that ticket, you decide to watch & suffer through the entirety of the bad movie. Say what you will about the dev's art/animation skill, i think their true talent is in behavioral economics.