Talking about ambitious and complex projects, there are 2 kind of solo developers on crowdfunding platforms:[...]
what is exactly the planning of all these solo devs that embark themselves in such huge 3D projects that will obviously not finish in less than 5+ years... (if they manage such a feat). Makes me wonder if the Patreon trend will end at some point when people start realizing this.
- those that have enough funds to invest and hire people from the get-go, therefore stops being solo developers.
- those who don't have enough funds and hope that their project gets enough traction to attract a good amount of supporters, gaining the budget to enter the 1st category.
The poetry in JustAI 's post is good and all, but no one in his right mind would keep working solo with a monthly crowdfunding amount that would allow him/her to live (maybe even rather comfortably, why not) while also hiring help, getting the project out should always be the priority, there are scammers yes (ProjectE might be a good and obvious example, hell, even Star Citizen from my perspective), but if you start a project you want to finish the project, you don't set up all the circus just to milk people, you actually need effort and skill to even start showing off in order to gain money, at that point it's actually a better idea to work on it and gain even more by establishing a reputation and a precedent.
Matto resides in the 2nd group of the above list, he's a perfectionist maniac and a mad workhorse, yes, and takes pride in his own work, he likes what he does, but if he was making enough to actually start saving something he would have started outsourcing part of his work to expedite the release, at least the most tedious shit.
It's always a question of money & budget, nothing more.