I contributed $35 in the original Kickstarter because I love space sims and the genre was completely dead at that time. I doubt the game will ever come out at this point but I'm not going to sweat wasting $35 more than ten years ago.
There was this space sim game a while back that was called HELLION, it had so much potential it was unreal. Sadly, some internal affairs and change in priority left it abandoned. You hate to see it.
I gave them USD 50 for pretty similar reasons plus the additional reason of thanking Roberts for the entertainment I had from his earlier games. Since, I have easily gotten that much entertainment value watching the development, so for me it was a great purchase. ANd they tell me there will be a full game someday, for icing on the cake.
In between when that kickstarter went off and now, another company funded, built and released Elite Dangerous, then added multiple extensions adding planet surfaces, first-person stuff, etc to it. I mean in terms of gameplay it's nowhere near as ambitious and it's got an absence of story, but it actually released and gained success.
ED has some cool moments like traveling, controls, vr support, but after getting over the initial impressions there isn't much of a game for many players to enjoy and the later expansions packs have not been well-received. I hope ED is not the benchmark since SC has so much more potential in single/multiplayer
