This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Chris Flaat. Original Post: Feature creep: the bane of big software projects Feed Title: Chris Flaat's Weblog Feed URL: /msdnerror.htm?aspxerrorpath=/cflaat/Rss.aspx Feed Description: I mainly discuss tips & tricks about VS 2002, VS 2003, and upcoming versions of VS. Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Chris Flaat Latest Posts From Chris Flaat's Weblog

Greetings all!  Today something happened which got me thinking about one of the nastiest problems in software development: feature creep.  This is when the feature set of a product morphs and grows to the point where it’s a significantly different product than when it began.

I’m reminded of an experience a few months ago when I had a major software disappointment.  It wasn’t with a Microsoft product, it was with a game made by another company.  (I won’t name names here, to protect the guilty as well as my six.)  It was the third version of a celebrated strategy game series.  I had never played the first version, but I became a serious addict of the second version.  This third version had been hyped endlessly on the company’s website, complete with user forums and frequent sneak peeks at the product.  It slipped for months, increasing the entire user community’s anticipation of the game.

When it finally shipped, it was a huge deal.  Some stores had already sold out on release day, and others were late getting their shipments.  The local Best Buy had it, though, and my wonderful wife was nice enough to get it for me as a present to celebrate an important event that had happened around the same time.

The game had incredible graphics, but there was a problem.  It was so complex and slow-moving as to be nearly unplayable.  The previous version was exciting, balanced between strategic planning and combat, and super fun.  This version was insanely slow, and you had to spend hours learning the game’s AI systems that were supposed to make it easier to play!  I played it intensely for a few weeks but then lost interest.  It just wasn’t FUN.

One of the key problems this game had faced was feature creep.  This was evident reading the updates from the team on how the game was doing.  They started out the project with an insanely grand vision that turned out to be not very fun and way too complex.  So they started cutting things, and this left a hacked-up nightmare that didn’t work together fluidly.  Worse, it had a healthy dose of obvious bugs which got in the way of gameplay.  (All products have bugs, but some more than others – Age of Empires I & II, by comparison, never had any bugs which I felt got in my way.)

I feel for that team, but it’s too bad they didn’t start out with a manageable vision and – most of all – ensure that they were taking the best parts of the prior version forward and not ruining the things that made the prior version great.  Such is the challenge for all of us who would produce a new version of a well-liked product.

That’s all for now! -Chris