unorthodox release cycle
This, right here is the problem. But not for the reason you think.
The "mainstream" developers have thrown money, manpower (and mental health) at the task of running what is, in all honesty, some utterly
insane release schedules. And every single time they do this the final output of thier efforts is some buggy, barely half-finished thing that the by then exhausted dev team has to go back and fix, while still operating under that same pressure.
It's an entirely self-defeating process that only "works" because there's a fountain of money, and people wanting a "foot in the door" propping it up.
This has become the norm for the industry. This is now expected of every developer reagrdless of if they are capable of doing it, or even if they want to do it.
This stuff happens in every industry to some extent. It's noticeably more common in software, and endemic in game development.
And this is
bad.
I'm from a QC/QA background, so from my (incredibly biased) perspective, how Alex is handling development is the right way to do it.
Take the time you need with the resources you have to produce a thing with the highest quality you can. Release, review and correct if needed. Repeat until finished.
Expectation is the key. And a lot of people have had thiers skewed by decades of antics from a few businesses who are more interested in short-term monetary gain than actually producing something
good.
