If you visit their new game site(http://auniversetoexplore.com/), they say...
Quote
MechWarrior Online's incredibly successful Founder's Program proved that we can work directly with our backers to help build a game for the community.
...but I bet if you had the same founders program today for MechWarrior, they would not get nearly as much Founder's support as they did back then when we thought they would actually deliver a finished game we wanted....