Can a good idea compensate the game realization quality

[Natalie]

I have thought much on it within the latest time...
I have read the threads about the game industry state and on how to sell a bad game, and all that makes me think even more..

Imagine you have a game with a very nice idea. But its quality leaves much to be desired.. You know how to improve the game. But two tricks here:
1) You don't have much money to invest in polishing
2) It is NOT YOUR GAME. You only have to promote it. To make it worse, developers do not wish to make any changes and are willing to release the game at last and see their first money..

A kind of dilemma is : polish the game making it look really perfect (which requires much resources though) or just promote the game as it is, hoping that the players will "forgive" bad realization for the great idea?

I would be really happy to see the opinions of portals here (Snooker, Brian from AT and others). Would they take the game for distribution, sacraficing the quality for the cool concept?

[MerscomMan]

As a publisher, we would not, and most other publishers would not either. There are a million good ideas, what makes a game successful is execution. In my opinion, that execution comes down to the final 10% of the game. That's what separates AAA products from games that run out of steam in two weeks, be it in casual, core or online.

[papillon]

If you have a great game with ugly graphics you will probably need to rely on yourself and a handful of diehard fans to promote the game until it becomes such a success that publishers HAVE to take notice.... :)

[Spore Man]

Should have ultimate say, being the publisher, but if the contract doesn't make it the case, I suppose they could push back. Then I'd try to reason with them regarding whether they'd rather make 1/10th what they could without the polish.

[Natalie]

Hi there,

thanks to you all for the replies.

Yes, I agree that ideas are cheap nowadays. Sometimes it is really hard to evaluate the game without a decent execution..
Still, as one publisher likes to say, it is their game, and we cannot design it for them.
Papilon, this is a nice idea :) Some existing games even make me think, that this strategy can really work.. Both good execution and idea are important nowadays. Good combination of these two things show the developer's professionalism. But for some reason I still believe that sometimes creative idea can win in the players' world...
What do you think?