If you are talking about the old Itch system, you could provide a donation before downloading. However you was never forced to do so and could just click skip and download... This was the same for all games at the time, but was removed after the whole Visa/MasterCard thing.
Yeah like I wrote if you been following the game since the start a few years back you could had "pay" ( well donate money) for it which I did, and I also wrote that I didn't remember if you "HAD" to paid for it since it was few years back, My statement before wasn't a complain in any way I was just saying that some people have spend money and have waited years for this game in general, maybe I should have emphasized the "FUNNY THING" as just passing information and perspective to ValeriaFFFX.