I don't know what their original intention was, but from the blatant rip of Summertime Saga art I can only assume it was a cash grab from the start. If you intend to produce a good game, make sure you have at the bare minimum a coder, a writer, and an artist. All of those are available freelance and many will work cheap for the chance to be an invested (meaning a percentage of the profit) part of a project that may be very successful. And a faker in any of those three departments is easily spotted when they crib someone else's work and slap their name on it. Again, I don't know what the developer's intention was, but this had "fake it until the Patreon money rolls in" written all over it from the very beginning.