Do you have any actual examples of such developers? Because I'm actually interested in that. I've looked at dozens of games and their Patron growth through websites like Grapheon. And from the ones that I saw (games that are at least decently popular) not single one started out as a project that didn't have much support. I'm sure it's possible, but I just haven't found any examples. Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong games?
Either way, uncertainty is your enemy in this case. You have to make a choice: After seeing that a game isn't successful, you can keep developing it for months in the hopes that it will one day catch fire and give you support (which is what I did for Blooming Love, from version 0.1 to version 0.16 that game didn't bring in enough money, but each month I kept hoping something would change). But if that doesn't work, you've just spend several months on a project that wasn't worth it. As a developer, that's a very difficult decision to make when you're not in a position where you can risk not brining in enough money for several months in a row
