When we started working on CaptureAge it was just another hobby project for all of us, but around the point it started to see consistent usage on streams it became clear that it needed to be more than just a hobby. 4+ developers have been working full time (and more than full time!) on this project for months.
Originally we happened to have enough spare time (breaks between contracts, end of university courses etc) to afford this, but none of us are independently wealthy and it could never last forever. Even though we seem to spend most waking hours working on CaptureAge we do still have "normal" lives that include nice things like rent and food costs!
The only way we can continue to develop and support the product that we want to make, and that we think the community deserves, is for the community to support us. We know that we are taking a risk, but it is one we have decided to take because we love Age of Empires II, and we think the players, casters and viewers of the bestb" game in history deserve the bestb" spectating client!