Okay, and we're talking about games available that we actually want to play. If other games are suitable for you, great! Not everybody feels the same way. Therefore, we're taking a risk on Pantheon.
Which you have no idea if it'll actually be something you want to play, other than some empty promises so far.
The main issue isn't so much that you're investing early into a game, that's mostly fine. The main issue is you're investing a stupid amount of money for no actual tangible benefit, even if the game releases in a good state. See as much as Star Citizen is bullshit, they're at least selling special spaceships and places and whatever the fuck they're selling, you're buying a specific thing for that money. Anything above the 100$ Pantheon pack is basically buying nothing with the additional money.
100$ gets you 2 copies of the game, which is fair enough. For 50$ more you get a ring and 5 item renaming vouchers? Like this is the kind of shit you get for free for preordering. Also points to potential microtransactions on top of a sub right from the get go, hmm that sounds like great design for your hardcore old school mmo. For 100$ more, you get a whooping 3months sub, or 30$. 250$ more and you get a postcard and a cloth map, that's like 5times the price of Collector Edition jump on a normal game. 500$ more and you get another whooping 3months sub. After that it gets even more retarded. That puts alpha and prealpha access prices in the "I'm really fucking stupid" realm.
There isn't even cool collector goodies like a statue, T shirt, posters and other shit, it's just a cloth map and a postcard, that wouldn't even pass for a collector edition normally, that's like 1st print rewards/day 1 edition stuff. There isn't cool ingame rewards like a fancy looking mount or a house or whatever, it's a few items, a vanity pet and some renaming item vouchers(again, what the fuck is that supposed to be and why should they sell these?). You don't get a lot of sub time either, it's not like lotro which back in the day had those 250$ founder packs with lifetime subs in them which would pay for themselves eventually. No here, unless you're spending 10k$, you get a measly 6months of sub. Like how do they not give lifetime subs for anyone paying more than 500$ is fucking stupid.
In the end, they're banking on people being so fucking thirsty they'll pay 1k just to get access to pre alpha. Assuming pre alpha is what pre alpha should be, that means some buggy unfinished mess that'll probably crash constantly, without 24/7 server uptime(more like 4hours every week testing if that). And I don't mean that because the game is bad or whatever, that's what pre alpha is even in good games.
As I said before, the pricing is retarded, even if we assumed this was going to be a great game. And that's a big fucking assumption to do so far.