Oh no, making millions with a literal scam gets you criticized?

Please just stop bringing this up in this context. They literally sold a single player game as multiplayer, along with a plethora of features which were said to be in the game at launch day which where never implemented. See yourself at [0].

The only reason this keeps being brought up is because Sean Murray has extraordinary talent at tickling the medias gamers-are-evil trope. This has nothing to do with payment methods.

[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4y1h9i/wheres_the_no...

They did finally implement the multiplayer among other things.

No Man's Sky's developers sold a promise upfront, not a game upfront. You see the same thing with pretty much all pre-orders and early access games, not just the crowd funded stuff. It is completely different to selling a complete game for $60 with the customers able to read reviews before purchasing or get refunds after purchasing.