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The only thing worse for a company than burning customers who might choose not buy their next product is if they fold before having the opportunity to release a

The only thing worse for a company than burning customers who might choose not buy their next product is if they fold before having the opportunity to release another product. Early in my career I was a minor participant in discussions like this (albeit not in the video game space) and no one was in denial about the massive reputational cost of prematurely releasing buggy software, they were just balancing it against the increasing probability of bankruptcy. Established companies with deep pockets and startups with shoestring development teams and patient investors might be able to weather a delay of six months or more, but most companies don't have that kind of runway and must constantly weigh the bottomless desire for more time to polish and the need for cashflow to make payroll. (Thankfully the last couple companies I've worked for have had deep pockets and a strong desire to protect their reputations, but I appreciate that this is a privileged position.)

giancarlostoro 3y ago
Very good point, which is why I think its crucial to also stop and plan on fixing bugs as #1 priority and descope some features, or hide them altogether until they are ready. I can appreciate how complicated these things are, everything is a tradeoff. Thank you for your insight, I've mostly worked for reasonably large companies so I have not yet been able to see things from the perspective of a much smaller company first-hand.
- asoneth 3y ago
  Yes, the company I work for now is medium-sized but it is stable and run by engineers so fixing bugs take precedence over shipping a feature by some artificial deadline. At the end of the day our customers and field folks understand that our feature roadmap is an estimate and not a promise. From what I can tell, many of our competitors operate similarly. But this approach is extremely difficult in some domains. If companies in a particular domain routinely make what you consider to be obvious mistakes there are a couple possibilities. It could certainly be herd mentality and they just need someone to remind them to do more QA and to fix bugs before adding features. But it could also be incentives that resulted in the companies that cut corners outcompeting companies that did things "the right way".

giancarlostoro 3y ago

Very good point, which is why I think its crucial to also stop and plan on fixing bugs as #1 priority and descope some features, or hide them altogether until they are ready. I can appreciate how complicated these things are, everything is a tradeoff. Thank you for your insight, I've mostly worked for reasonably large companies so I have not yet been able to see things from the perspective of a much smaller company first-hand.

asoneth 3y ago
Yes, the company I work for now is medium-sized but it is stable and run by engineers so fixing bugs take precedence over shipping a feature by some artificial deadline. At the end of the day our customers and field folks understand that our feature roadmap is an estimate and not a promise. From what I can tell, many of our competitors operate similarly. But this approach is extremely difficult in some domains. If companies in a particular domain routinely make what you consider to be obvious mistakes there are a couple possibilities. It could certainly be herd mentality and they just need someone to remind them to do more QA and to fix bugs before adding features. But it could also be incentives that resulted in the companies that cut corners outcompeting companies that did things "the right way".