Let’s talk about product or service launches. This week was patch week for World of Warcraft. The patch added a lot of new content to the game and as per usual the game portion of the launch had problems. Maintenance was extended longer than usual and emergency maintenance was needed the next day. Ironically, if their patches went smooth the first time their player-base would be surprised.

Along with the new content was an update to WoW Armory, a database site run by Blizzard. Users can search through player profiles (their specs), see guild information, and find upgrades for gear.

The updates to the site added Achievements to the front page and showing a player’s dual spec, a new feature added to the game with the patch. They also made small changes to the design of the site to improve usability.

The reason I am mentioning this? When the patch went live, it is kind of obvious that the new dual spec feature would be used by players since they’ve been talking about it for months. If players and users were going to use the feature then it makes sense to have dual specs viewable in the armory, doesn’t it?

Do you know how many companies would be so focused on launching the patch they would not have the Armory ready? Do you know how many, in an effort to meet the deadline they miscalculated, would launch anyway…knowing their users would be frustrated?

Tons.

The internet has a massive amount of half-done sites that expect to make money. I admit, I enjoy tweaking my site(s). This site, in its current form, is not complete. However, if I were going to release something where users needed information (and expected it to be on the site), I would have those components synced. Do you see the difference?

Cutting corners is not the way to success. Let’s look at another example…

Demigod, a real-time strategy game by Stardock and Gas Powered Games, released this week. They had problems with the online component to their game. Some people were unable to connect. Stardock addressed this issue head on:

“While I can say that there are, even as I type, many hundreds of people playing online together, mostly in Skirmish and Pantheon games, there are many hundreds of others having trouble connecting to people in custom games or having skirmish or pantheon doing something odd due to the server overload,” Wardell wrote. “We are working to address it and what I mean by that is that we intend to release another update this week to deal with as much of what we’ve found as possible.”

They had another problem to battle. GameStop broke Demigod’s street date and released the game early.

“First, it was Easter weekend. And many of us had just finished a good solid 8 weeks of massive crunch and were looking forward to the weekend to recover. Instead, we found ourselves back at work having to turn on and configure the multiplayer matchmaking servers (we had enough for a beta but not for thousands of people).”

They had unexpected problems that caused their launch to be troublesome. Unexpected problems happen all the time in business. To make sure a launch goes smoothly making the deadline is not enough. Making the deadline early so all tasks are complete, employees are well-rested, etc. leaves room for reflection to spot problems or potential enhances that would make the launch even smoother. In Stardock’s case, they were trying but the long crunch they talked about implies they were rushing to get everything done. Rushing most times leads to problems.

Companies are not fooling anyone when they have unrealistic expectations. Blizzard rarely makes the deadline they initially state on patch day. It would be better to give users a more realistic time-frame. Instead of rushing for eight weeks Stardock could have sent (initially) a more realistic launch date that took into account potential problems.

In your own goals, try making a deadline and finishing it early. It is a good habit to ease into.