[nostrademons]

It doesn't work for AAA games, but it can work really well for indie games. Think of something like Factorio, where version 0.1 looked like this:

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-184

Then they just kept releasing every week for 7 years, and now you have people building CPUs and explaining Apache Kafka with it.

Ostriv is another recent game that comes to mind as having a similar development cycle. Also many F2P MMOs - most of the non-Blizzard online games I know do regular releases that frequently change the game mechanics (often, to a big player uproar) but still keep their userbase. Fortnight and Pokemon Go are two big ones here.

[georgeecollins]

Lots of games come out in early beta now and raise money through sales as they are developed. It is a better model than crowdfunding for games, because you start from a demonstration of competence in game development and you (usually) have direct view into the development process.

[sleepydog]

While we're on the topic of Factorio, I find that even from a Factorio player's perspective, the OP is good advice. I've wasted so much time trying to build the perfect base and starting over after building myself into a corner, when really I should have just built something that works "right now" and make iterative improvements over time.