Not so early, because of patreons and lookalike sites. developers can get a community, receive a decent amount of money, even without the need of creating a studio or paying a lot of workers
i like to play and do the things on my way, the sensation that sandbox games gives us, but the majority are scripted and sometimes are broken. so now i prefer faster VN that bring us more than 1 path instead those bunch of linear sandbox
when i am online, i download 2 or 3 games and play them during a week, but sometimes i dont have the time to play, so i need to delete because everytime i log on, theres a game that captivate my attention