Aurora is a free project you do in your spare time. It's a remarkable accomplishment for that, but it doesn't change that it's an incredibly slow development cycle as a result. I think a whole bunch of people would be happy to pay for something a bit more dedicated. You aren't interested in taking on the project full time for pay, so that leaves other people working on their own projects inspired by Aurora as the only real remaining option for updates that don't take years.
The reason this update is taking 2-3 years is that I completely rewriting the entire game from scratch in a modern language and including sufficient additional content to fill several normal development cycles
Prior to the complete rewrite there were usually multiple updates per year, and that will likely be the situation once C# Aurora is launched.
With regard to the concept of generating cash to pay for full time developers, that is fairly common for games that will appeal to a wide audience, or updates of classic games. I think the problem in this case would be that a game as complex as Aurora would only appeal to a small market, so you may have difficulty sourcing sufficient funds from within that potential market. Assume a programmer wants $100k per year (for example), so you need 1,000 people to find $100 each, or 10,000 to find $10 each (bearing in mind there are less users than that registered in the entire history of this forum). That is also assuming one programmer can do it in one year. If it takes longer or needs more people, you can start multiplying those numbers. For reference, I do occasionally get donations to my PayPal account, although I don't solicit for those donations. The largest was $400 and in total over the last ten years, it is probably about $1500.
Besides, the problem isn't development, it's design. I am sure there are many better programmers than me, with far greater technical knowledge. However, they need to understand the wider strategic concepts of the game, the detailed interaction of the myriad game features and an understanding of how all those different features affect the balance of the game. Or they need someone else to write a very detailed design document and work closely with them. I have the advantage that the design is in my head so I don't need someone to explain how to code it. Without that strong design influence, programmers are likely to get bogged down in designing a very cool and smart technical architecture (in standalone terms), that doesn't help them achieve any of the functional design objectives. This isn't a problem just for hobbyists by the way - it's a problem for large, multi-national corporations.
If your idea is going to work, you need to pay a game designer first to work though all of the above, then hire someone to work with him to code what he designed. BTW, the game designer will need the parameters within which he can design the game, so you need to consider who provides that - would it be debated among the people contributing the money for example?
Ultimately, I am not convinced you can plan to do a game like Aurora or Dwarf Fortress from scratch. They probably need to naturally evolve from less complex versions, based on experience and user feedback. Trying to balance something along the lines of the current Aurora and accurately model all the potential feature interactions ahead of time is just too complex for a small team. If it was that straightforward, there would be a lot more Aurora-type games in existence.
