little tip if you want to make money off this game. don't sell it on here make it free and have a have somewhere people can donate too. the fact you lock this game behind a pay wall of $10 on itch is going to make people not want to buy it and even if they did someone could just reupload it to a different site and make it free. i really don't like devs like you how think that a they should charges $10 for a game on itch that could be fake or full of bugs or not even work. so yea ypu might want to rethink the price.
I favor the Pay-To-Play for a full product over the Patreon model for a few reasons:
1) The motivation for creating these types of games is coming and going so devs tend to abandon products such as this, resulting in an almost inevitable disappointment by the players.
2) You owe something to your patreon, which is accompanied by a stressful feeling of being obliged to deliver a specific amount of content on a time-based interval.
3) Patreon is for developers who look to create a "franchise"-like set of adult content, I rather just be gone.
4) I think itch has a refund solution implemented to it.
I think people are just not used to the pay-to-play model for these types of games. 10$ Is not much.
If you spend an evening pleasantly with this game, than it is equivalent to spending time and paying for couple o' beers in the local bar. But this game is here forever and delivers more than a few hours of fun.
the first 3 point you made can be said about the dev selling it. i bought a game on here a while back and all it was was 30 mins of no game play and bugs. my point is that must games like this are cash grabs. at least with it being free then the player doesn't risk losing money for a game that may or may not be broken. i understand these devs want to make money but doing it this way is going to make a lot a people not even want to try it. most game devs will have free version that is a update or 2 behind and a payed version.
10$ USD is a bit on the high side, but I wouldn’t mind paying something like 25$USD for a full bundle of 3 games.
Honestly though, I think your view on being afraid of getting scammed is uncalled for. Especially when the dev already has a history of making full releases and demos.
Likewise, anyone can pirate anything, just don’t try to justify it as some moral crusade when it’s clear you’re only doing this for your self. :/