This is a crucial observation. "Hofstadter's Law" at work: any unfamiliar task will take longer than planned, no matter how much extra time there is the plan.

This is a crucial observation. "Hofstadter's Law" at work: any unfamiliar task will take longer than planned, no matter how much extra time there is the plan. You can't account for your ignorance with padding, you need some kind of actual knowledge. The result, then, is that there are only a few ways to actual make an AAA game. One is to hire some quorum of people who've already made one, so that they can bring you up to speed. The other is to do enough proofs of concept that you can see the problems coming. It looks like Woolfe went from some mobile, educational games to a AAA PC title. That, it seems, was too big a gap to predict and prepare for the hurdles they would face.