i spent $10k on a kickstarter game as far back as 2013, but i viewed it as an investment at the time. investing in the developers of the game being able to continue, as well as the assets maintained ~60-80% resale value for a time period. Sure it gave advantages in the game, but the game wasn't /designed/ around those advantages.

I think the part that's a relatively recent phenomenon is that games are designed with "free play" as an afterthought or even the game designed to push you away from it, instead of "free play" being the main design focus.