Hallo,
And yet I can understand that many people see it differently. Because the risk lies entirely with the “donor”; he has no guarantee whether he will ever see the finished version (there are plenty of examples of abandoned games). Unfortunately, Patreon allows everything, some DEVs even argue that you haven't acquired any rights with your donations and therefore have to be content if you don't get anything. The STEAM system with its early access suits me better. I pay once and play the game from the alpha to the finished game, like with Sunkenland, which is now available in version 0.25, which you can get as early access for €19.50 in Germany. I admit it used to be different on Patreon, but unfortunately there are more and more abandoned games, so if I'm not mistaken there's even a special section on F95!
P.S.: Sorry, google machine-translate, english is not my mother langue.
yes, when you support developer via patreon you have no guarante that game will be developed or finished. but is it exactly same as with steam and early acces (but yeah, here is cash return), you have no guaratne that game will be finished too.
what i see as main difference, is that on patreon you pay fro that game with subsription , and that monthly sum will in 1-3 years will be eqivalent to (one time) price on steam.
but main advantage on patreon i see, that here in 99% of all cases, you have here acces to completly free version of game (sometimes it is older version of payed version, lack some extras..etc).
and for devs at patreon...after all, it is all about thiers behavior and delivery of regullar updates of thiers gaames. if they fail to deliver more or less regular updates, it is common that these devs have eighter small total income or they get big drop in income if they fail to deliver update for game for long time.
but generaly on patreon, it is safe to say, that once game is regulary updated of over 1 year, then there is very high chance that game will continue to be developed. over 90% of all burnouts happen in first year.