The simple answer is because your money talks. Your saying why you would or did not pay does not even register in the minds of the people with the cash. The people that front millions of dollars to pay for labor, hardware, software, an office...they do not give a damn about you if you do not pay. What they care about is if they will make back their money, if they can double their investment, and if it can happen again!
Plain and simple...money talks. People putting up millions on kickstarer to get a long dead franchise revived. Founder of a new game studio fighting tooth and nail to justify why a investor should part with their money. A million other situations that all speak to why I have a gold badge right now.
Simply put, I am now a statistic. I am a value on some analytic that another game developer can use to get money to make a game I may enjoy. I have helped not only Piranha and IGP, but many other developers that are faced with rising costs and a skeptical market. And that...that is worth $120...don't you think?
Edited by SyberSmoke, 23 June 2012 - 02:05 PM.