He is not beholden to anyone as Patreon is for receiving support/donations. You aren't beholden to people that give you tips for playing guitar at a public square.
Well they better play something if I pay them, otherwise I'm taking my money back, simple as that. If they wanna fight over it I'll simply call the cops and have them kicked out of the square, where I am that's technically panhandling (illegal without a permit, which I don't think city hall hands those out for panhandlers anymore). As far as Patreon I don't use them but on SS shit like this is one reason among many I don't sub to devs that are not productive and don't have a track record, simple as that, same way a bank will not loan you money if you have no credit history or good rating. People that stay subbed for 2+ years and get nothing but excuses or silence and simply complain but still stay subbed that whole time are morons, plain and simple. Unsub, cut your losses and move on. Patreon, SS, etc basically just shift the financial risk of developing a game from the devs to the "customers", and the absolute safest way to not get scammed (my method is 2nd safest) is not pay shit to anyone until you see a completed tag and let the devs fund their own damned development until then like it used to be done.