4. Finish The Game Before Setting A Release Date
We all remember banging our heads in frustration at how many times Gran Turismo 5 was delayed before its release; it became something of a joke even if it was ultimately nothing on the 15-year development cycle of something like Duke Nukem: Forever. Still, Gran Turismo 5 remains a classic case of a game that suffered because it had to rush to a release date; the game, though great, did prove somewhat underwhelming, given that only the "premium" vehicles had the best rendering, and the rest of the cars were simply up-scaled versions of the PS2's cars. It's clear that the game was rushed to the stores in order to finally give fans the game they wanted, yet frankly, we'd have rather they waited until the game was perfect and simply not set a release date until they knew 100% that they could meet it. The problem is that publishers are impatient and set overly strict deadlines, unappreciative of the artistic process that is creating a game; how about only setting a solid release date once a game is in the beta stage?