First Impressions Never Go Away

As a developer I have found that the shipping impression is kind of a frustrating aspect of games.  No matter how great you make your game after release, by implementing patches and addons etc, you never shake off the first impression.  How the game is when it was first shipped is how it sticks in the minds of the gaming community.

We all want to make great games.  We strive to surpass our past works and build something that will affect the lives of as many people as possible.  We also have to be realistic.  As developers we are dependent on a publisher to finance our project.  That gives us a set amount of resources, both for funding and time.  We have to meet a deadline, and it helps when we know a little about project management.  We work overtime to get our game done in time for release, and then we ship it out there and wait for the first reviews to trickle in.  I love the nervekick associated with it.

So what if you overlooked stuff.  Or, what if you had great ideas for features that never got implemented?  Maybe you even developed those features, just not in time to add them to the shipped release?  Or maybe, if you planned well and worked hard, your game shipped out just the way you wanted it.

Your game hits the shelves and makes its first impression on gamers.  This impression sticks.  Any fixes or improvements you want to make, or should make if something went wrong, won't change it.  A series of bugs you had in the initial release and removed in a subsequent patch will be remembered.  The internet and online reviews are a wonderful way of reminding people how buggy a game is, even if it isn't anymore.  Then you've got your publisher, who isn't funding your project anymore.  Implementing fixes and additions is all on you, and you have to wait for enough sales to at least break even.  That gives that first impression enough time to settle in even more.  It isn't exactly fair, but its how it is.

I make it a point to keep this in mind in all my projects, and it gets repeated often enough in any game design book I can think of.  Make sure your game is polished when it goes out.  You're better off with a small set of features that works well, than with a giant set of features that needs more testing.  After release, any changes to your game should be added features and things that make the game cooler, it shouldn't be fixes to things you rushed into premature completion to meet a deadline.  Make a good first impression, and then improve on it.