[citation][nom]Achoo22[/nom]Bad that folks buy into this - worse that anyone could think it reasonable to assert pressure to donate to a for-profit cause by misuse of terms like "grace period", unfortunate, and penalty.Shame on you, Toms. We obviously can't trust any review you put forth on the game or anything related to be unbiased.[/citation]
The big thing you are missing is that these "donations" buy you the game. We can expect Star Citizen to sell for the standard $60 price, but more than 10 000 people who wanted the game bought it for under $40, many of them for $30.
That, and donations give you other perks, like pledge ships will always be available, or for me, my pledge got me the soundtrack, something I would like, not to mention a host of other goodies.
It was assumed people knew that donating to Star Citizen got you access to the final game, beta, and alpha (most donation tiers do) but I guess people like Catherine and Gundam288 need to your your hand in explaining it.