Dev Q 4: Why does marketing need a feature list so far in advance?
If you’ve read the previous answers you should be getting the idea that we deal with a lot of outside partners. They have deadlines and schedules that we have to work with far in advance to get your game in stores on time and to make sure people are excited to buy it. Therefore, we need solid information about the game to create all of the supporting materials that will make this happen. We have to work with printing companies and video creation teams that may be booked up months in advance. We may have to order promotional items that are more cost-effectively created overseas and are then sent to us by boat, a process that takes months. There is a lot going on behind the scenes well before a gamer will see anything in public about your game. Over the years I have suggested that developers organize their feature list into three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary features should be the ones that you know you must have in order to launch the game. They are the key feat
