That's exactly what this is. And the multi level marketing teleseminar queen is right there at the top showing them the way.
It's a way to exist without actually making anything of value. Revolution 60 is a complete financial wash, but Brianna still makes patreon bux. Sarkeesian does absolutely nothing for a living. A good living. She's delivered 2 youtube videos thus far and gone on a university speaking tour to do things like put out her 8 ways to make games better. Which of course are all the same way, make women less sexy. How many videos does Jenna Marbles put out in a year? Come on Anita, you can do better than 2 for 160k dollars.
The whole indie gaming scene is spiralling into a tornado of social justice shit. It used to be exciting and promising. Now it's just more crowd funded shovelware and half finished garbage coming from washed up old devs coasting on their past fame. You have to sift through 12 metric tons of shit to find an indie game that's anything worthwhile. Just like the apple store.
But Patreon, this is pure pyramid scheme. They all feed each other a little bit to keep the money flowing up the pyramid from the schmucks at the bottom to people like Sarkeesian at the top. How long will it work and what will be the straw that breaks the camels back and makes it all topple is what I wonder.
Joe schmucks are all too willing to crowdfund any asinine bullshit now. Maybe what needs to happen is a colossal fail. Something like Star Citizen. Something that fails so big that someone actually creates a crowdfunding solution with checks and balances. Like milestones and distributed release of funds. The AAA industry has milestones and deadlines for a reason. Because you can't really just sit on your ass in San Fran bleeding money and actually get games made.
Design is law failed 15 years ago when Romero pissed away close to 100m dollars on Ion Storm, but now the same mentality is back. That's why Romero is right in there in the scene like a dirty shirt. Because this time the schmucks in the crowd are footing the bill for guys like Shafer to piss away money, not companies like Eidos, who's money Romero pissed away back in 2000.