Looking into this particular case a bit more, I think this might have been more of a "got bought by a bigger company and then got fucked over by said bigger company" thing than it was a "mismanaging crowd-funding money" thing, though there's likely plenty of the latter as well. After all, Mane6 possibly wouldn't have needed to sell out to Modus if they'd done a better job with their Indiegogo money. I'm not sure if the fact that they split out a lot of the content into paid DLC and a "season pass" is more indicative of "oh crap we ran out of money and need more funds to finish this" or of "our new Modus overlords made us do this," though. Probably a bit of both.
And yeah, speaking more generally, I haven't pledged to a crowd-sourced project or bought an early access game in years now. I don't foresee ever doing so again, and shit like this is why. Of course, "got bought by a bigger company and then got fucked over by said bigger company" is a phenomenon that long predates crowd-sourcing and early access.
As for episodic stuff, I don't buy those until all the episodes are complete and released, assuming it's a game I'm actually interested in at all. Hell, I don't even play free episodic games until and unless they're finished, e.g. The Silver Lining, which still to this day has not yet released its final episode and almost assuredly never will at this point. As such, I will likely never play it. (Their last/most recent update on the status of the game will be half a decade old as of January 2024.)
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And yeah, speaking more generally, I haven't pledged to a crowd-sourced project or bought an early access game in years now. I don't foresee ever doing so again, and shit like this is why. Of course, "got bought by a bigger company and then got fucked over by said bigger company" is a phenomenon that long predates crowd-sourcing and early access.
As for episodic stuff, I don't buy those until all the episodes are complete and released, assuming it's a game I'm actually interested in at all. Hell, I don't even play free episodic games until and unless they're finished, e.g. The Silver Lining, which still to this day has not yet released its final episode and almost assuredly never will at this point. As such, I will likely never play it. (Their last/most recent update on the status of the game will be half a decade old as of January 2024.)