While you have a very valid point, what's missing is accountability to those paying. In the real world, developers set milestones and are judged by whether or not they meet those milestones with a reasonable consistency. That's not Pateron, where you pay monthly with little perhaps no insight as to the actual progress of the developer(s). Which in a way is reasonable because the dev(s) rarely publish a comprehensive road map. At the same time is unreasonable, because you're funding whatever random process the dev(s) go through to create a game which they might abandon at any moment. It's worth noting that NOT completing the game may be the best payoff strategy for the dev(s).
Paying for a released game is different. The dev(s) release a complete game and are paid by those who value their work.
I really don't understand what point you're trying to make here. Your response comes across as if you're trying to refute what I said before. I already understand the position many have taken, that someone should not get paid if they are not actively producing something for their supporters. I also understand the idea that there should be accountability to show that money provided by generous donors is not being wasted. I was merely trying to point out two things. Firstly, not everyone thinks this same thing. Secondly, that your metric gauging whether someone is working a proper amount will be different from someone else's metric.
I agree with you that there
should be accountability and that there should be regular communication and clear effort / progress on a project. However, that unfortunately doesn't change the situation. Like I said before, we're looking at it with one perspective; those supporting a creator may see it differently. (They clearly are accepting the rate of development work being done.) Just because we may believe there's a lack of accountability doesn't mean a developer's patrons are going to jump ship.
I find it odd that you don't consider Patreon "the real world". Pretty sure it's real money flowing to creators on that site, paid for by real people. I know you're at least mostly referring to developers working for a software or other technology company (like a dot-com). It doesn't suddenly make the money and supporters on Patreon imaginary.
We can argue that "it's just not right" all we want, but it doesn't change anything. (And again, I agree that there should be accountability and real progress from a creator I support.) But I have no control over which people support which creator. None of us discussing this on F95 can control that. People are either going to abandon or stick with a creator, based on their own thoughts about them. There are also people who still go bungee jumping, even though plenty of deaths have resulted from taking a dive.
I guess I should stop posting on this topic now. We've veered off and aren't discussing this game anymore.
