I listened to Tim at NordicGame last week, and one thing was obvious, although it seems he does not realize it yet: So far, he has been constrained by the publishers to release the game.
During his talk, he said something like: "When do you release? When you run out of money". When you see the publisher as only viable source of money, you know that it has to be DONE, NOW. In that case, it's easy to cut the feature list and just do essential things and release. As 37 signals guys would say: do less ;)
Now, that they see they have many avenues to get money and still don't see the end of it, it's hard to constrain the scope of the project. There is no publisher to do the reality check.
During his talk, he said something like: "When do you release? When you run out of money". When you see the publisher as only viable source of money, you know that it has to be DONE, NOW. In that case, it's easy to cut the feature list and just do essential things and release. As 37 signals guys would say: do less ;)
Now, that they see they have many avenues to get money and still don't see the end of it, it's hard to constrain the scope of the project. There is no publisher to do the reality check.