To be fair, It's totally reasonable to not release anything until it's ready - that was actually the most common practice for games before 'modern Devs' start to abuse "Early Access" / "Subscription" to milk money.
And this Post seems quite sound.
What holds the Dev accountable to their Patreon is totally up to them: If you are still throwing money at them when the state of the development is not to your satisfaction, that's your problem.
BUT,
there are facts make the whole thing very sketchy and shady:
- Why worry about "Leaks" when "The game is a free game and will still be free when it's finished"?
- Why deploy an anti-piracy system when "The game is a free game and will still be free when it's finished"?
- Why claim "The game is a free game and will still be free when it's finished" when you literally can't play the game without paying, or using a cracked leak?
- Why Spent 5 years to work on it, while makes little to no progress at all?
I was assuming they were intentionally stalling to milk money. But now they decide to stop making regular update, I wonder how will they keep their patrons on the hook?
Maybe they will use the same scheme Cloud Meadow or Blackgate use:
Making Monthly Changelogs, without actually working on the game.
Personally I won't ever throw money at them, so it's no skin off my back.
If they somehow release a Complete game and it's good, great, I might even buy it.
Otherwise, a shame that another promising game goes to limbo due to greed and sloth, but it is what it is.