Fair warning: English is not my first language and while I do have some control over it in general this time I am tipsy while writing so I am not sure what you'll read will be easily understood and/orintelligent at all.
Problem with what you are saying is, spreading the word could be achieved also by organizing a community where you speak ONLY about the last PUBLIC release of a game, letting other players know what are the best titles in the field. If f95 was structured this way, then you would have been right. But the way things are now, depicting this site as the only/best way to advertise games is false. You argue that without you, the game would be less famous. I say that without you (and without the possibility of building anything like f95), a "legal" community like the one I described above would be born, and the game would be as famous as it is now, and with more backers. Then again, this is the internet, it has his "rules", and it is useless to imagine alternative words where people would not pirate content. I am not really bitter about it, I myself steal a lot of content, but I do find it funny when people who steal do not accept the fact that they steal, and need to find psychologicsl excuses to justify themselves. Curiosity and greed, it’s that simple, and we are all similar in that respect. No reason to act all moral. If someone creates something and asks people to pay to get it, and people get it without paying, it's always stealing. It might even be a terrible marketing strategy on the crestor's part, the pirates might be extremely well-meaning, but it is still stealing. Obtaining without consent is always theft, just like fucking without consent is always rape, even if you gave the girl the time of her life or made her popular. Then again, I repeat, I don't hold grudge against internet pirates (and obviously the act is not even comparable to something as terrible as a rape, it was a logical similarity, not a "content" one). I am perfectly aware that the internet works in a certain way, that humans beings work in a certain way (me too!), so if I start an enterprise, I take into account piracy from the very beginning as a part of the "game". When it comes to patreon specifically, the discourse is even more complex: the way I see it, pledgers do not pay for content, but just to support a creator they believe into, so if other people steal content, patrons should not get particularly angry. I was a pledger for months before becoming part of the team, and I didn't feel offended by pirates: I was happy to support mrdots, and that's it. But that's just ME, I think like this (and that's the reason I am on this board), but there are patrons who ARE offended by people who get for free what they think they are paying for, there are creators who get very angry if you steal from them (whatever the rules of the internet are), and I don't think any of us has the right to tell people to feel this or that way about it, especially if in the end our position is quite convenient (getting stuff for free). The least you can do is taking responsibility for whatever accusation might be rightly (or arguably, possibly, conceivably) thrown at you (theft!), and try to use the convenient position you find yourself into in the most useful and respectful way. (PS someone mentioned the fact that too much money too fast could make people too proud or shit like that. Well I am a freelancer and my pay does not depend on how much a game is getting funded on patreon, sorry to disappoint, pledges are not making me rich, not in the least, and actuslly at the moment I am not even working on the game so I am not getting paid at all)
