Yeah, the connotation of sites like patreon seems to have changed over time (to me at least). In the beginning, it was just a way to support a creator for whatever they did. However, it's a weird place for game development. It's similar to "Early Access" where you are putting money into a game that might not be anywhere closed to finished (with no guarantee to finish) except you're paying a monthly subscription. This makes people feel entitled to a game even though it might be one or a few people at best making the game and the patrons are expecting the game to be finished within a couple of years otherwise they're milking them.
Buying an early access game at a cheaper price just makes more sense as a consumer since it's less risk while still supporting the developer. That's partly why I don't subscribe to these sites because I'd pay full price for the game within a few months in some cases. As an example, I bought Subverse in early access because I was willing to part with that price point based on a mix of what they had plus my trust in what they would do. If they did Patreon then at best I would just be waiting until the full release.
I'm not saying early access is the best way to go for your game, but I feel like it might be the least stressful since people are technically paying for what's already there and anything more added is just icing. Though, some developers do the "episodic" thing to justify not releasing a "full" game upfront while still earning some additional revenue if they sell each episode separately.
And I know early access had a negative connotation too at one point, but I think that was mainly because it was major studios with millions of dollars doing it and not small indie devs scraping by doing it.
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