To a certain extent I agree with you. But when the game doesn't even fit in the RAM of a development system (4mb), never mind the 2mb of a real Playstation, or movement is 5 frames a second rather than 30/60 it's still very hard to get gameplay aspects right. And when the graphics engine, level editors, etc. don't even exist yet, you're not making any game!
In the 10 years I was in the industry (pre the era of off the shelf engines) I never saw a single title in a playable state until the last 6 months of the project, and sometimes later. My era was PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, original Xbox, Gamecube. I left as the PS3 was in its pre-release period.
I think for most games the dynamics are quite well known, and so it's less problematic if it's started later. But, in this case none of the dynamics of the game were worked out at any point, so it was doomed to fail.
On Lunatik I wasn't responsible for the game dynamics, I had one job: make the engine, and make it as fast as humanly possible so that the game and level designers can make a decent game. So, it's not either or, but it does take time to have the initial version that the team can work with (my C reference engine mentioned before).
One final point is that it's less about early optimisation and more about poor management, short timescales, and the balance of cash given to a team when signing with a publisher. When the money runs out, then you're in the lap of the publisher gods - it can go either way for many different reasons, some of which might have nothing to do with the game.
I suspect it's more professional now (and with better tooling), back then it was still pretty much a cottage industry: quite a large cottage industry, sure, but still pretty amateurish in terms of project management and planning. There wasn't a title I worked on that didn't overrun.
In the 10 years I was in the industry (pre the era of off the shelf engines) I never saw a single title in a playable state until the last 6 months of the project, and sometimes later. My era was PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, original Xbox, Gamecube. I left as the PS3 was in its pre-release period.
I think for most games the dynamics are quite well known, and so it's less problematic if it's started later. But, in this case none of the dynamics of the game were worked out at any point, so it was doomed to fail.
On Lunatik I wasn't responsible for the game dynamics, I had one job: make the engine, and make it as fast as humanly possible so that the game and level designers can make a decent game. So, it's not either or, but it does take time to have the initial version that the team can work with (my C reference engine mentioned before).
One final point is that it's less about early optimisation and more about poor management, short timescales, and the balance of cash given to a team when signing with a publisher. When the money runs out, then you're in the lap of the publisher gods - it can go either way for many different reasons, some of which might have nothing to do with the game.
I suspect it's more professional now (and with better tooling), back then it was still pretty much a cottage industry: quite a large cottage industry, sure, but still pretty amateurish in terms of project management and planning. There wasn't a title I worked on that didn't overrun.