I've been playing Path of Exile a lot, and as I mindlessly grinded for the fuel you need for the new dungeon I had a thought. Initially I was thinking of how I would make an ARPG that you would develop continuously like PoE but without any of the bullshit such as currency creep to sell stash tabs, and what came to mind then was an anecdote I heard of a store ending the deceptive prices (Only $99.99!) and markups on items immediately prior to sales and shit like that which resulted in massive losses, or at least decreased profits. The straight subscription model is of course dead and buried, buy it and you're done model encourages you to make paid expansions which can divide the playerbase if multiplayer matters or intimidate new players like Paradox games.
What if you had a continual development cycle based on the patreon model? Simply a volunteer subscription and whatever it pays for as far as dev team goes is what continues the game's content. No microtransactions of any kind, every decision made is solely to maximize the enjoyment of the gameplay, and you can release it for free so as many people can play it as want to.
If you get half what redlettermedia makes two first worlders can live very well, three in lower middle class depending on where, or several more if it's eastern europeans.
Why wouldn't this work?