OP, i'm with you...
in fact i exclusively came here looking for some information about this, and unfortunately i can already tell this is not a good community to stay in, i would advise you to stay away from it like i'm going to do after this post.
There are two sides of the problem, the additional funds which you were trying to discuss about, and the reaction to your view on the subject. In my view they are both connected, the reason they can't understand what you trying to say is the same reason why none of them could give you any good reason why should Obsidian ask additional 25$ for the beta.
What they are all trying to do is justify their own spending and the associated risks and consequences. Value is relative, so keeping this in mind, it's actually reasonable to ask money for anything as long as there are people willing to pay for it, simply because they consider it valuable to them. These people can never give you a good justification because there are none, so instead they comments fall in false moralism and ethics. "You don't have to buy it" they say... or, "They need the money to finish it" ... none of this matters because it still doesn't say anything about why should Obsidian ask for money on something that almost all other companies either do it for free or actually give you money to do it. They are simply blinded by their own feelings towards the game and their pledge. They are already too invested. You'll get nothing out of this thread, and this is a warning for the mentality of the people in this community, it's the "either you like it or you leave" mentality.
anyway, this is a trend that will stay, and i don't see any way out of it, the reason it happens is because the backers already invested their money and some of their time into this project, none of us want it to fail so it doesn't matter if Obsidian puts a price on the moon, they already caught they audience, you, me and all the rest who already paid something... now it's a money game where they try to grab a lit bit more money out of us, if it seems valuable to you, you don't see a problem in paying for a beta, if it isn't you feel jaded because you thought they considered you a bit special because you backed their project, well, in the way they see you, you are proportionally more valuable to Obsidian as more money you give to them
This could all be easily avoided if instead of calling this beta access this was early access, the difference between the two is that you in early access openly admit you are paying to play the game sooner even if it's still buggy, while beta you are supposed to help them finding and fixing problems
and this is were i'm with you OP:
IF... Obsidian wanted any of our help, they could simply asked for it, if they asking for money is because they don't need it... so this should never be called beta access
cheers, have a happy life... all of you
