It is always better to go into the interview, meeting, pitch with projects that are shipped or working to demonstrate.
For instance, if you want to get into the game industry, build games.
Same with any field, when you create/build you can rise above education, experience and more competitive metrics.
Created/functional projects, and especially shipped products, are the best qualifications.
Ending the list with a couple of research/unsolved problems is perfect.
To me, this is the perfect way to learn, almost like feel your way blind in a cave and reaching its extents.
If you have no shipped titles, the second best way is at least game components, networking, game mechanics etc that you can demo.
Personally I only like to work with people that can take a project to ship and are product focused. Gamedevs that don't know the depth and troubles of shipping a title will have to learn that on the company otherwise and usually don't know when to cut/scale correctly the gameplay/mechanic/product etc. A big problem with AAA development and broken systems is the heavy specialization, it is why games come out bugged as there is very little ownership or people that can ship a game solely and understand how all parts connect.
Unless you are only working on triple-A titles, most game companies are small/medium and need shippers that aren't as specialized, especially mobile. Though most people that go into AAA games think they will get to make their game, but in actuality they work on such small parts that they eventually break out into their own smaller studios or indies to build games.
Everyone at a game company wants to build their games, it is why people go into games. For success you have to have shippers who understand the whole shipping adventure that want to come together to get games out the door that each can have input on as a team, but also have the itch scratched that they already have shipped some of their own games and an outlet for creativity if specialization is too heavy on a project. The best game studios and games are developed by smaller teams and key individuals that understand this, especially during pre-production into early production/prototyping/game mechanics, during production and post-production that is where you want more specialization but even then you want people that have shipped.
I agree, I coupled shipping with maintaining as I see that as one. Just getting it out in the world isn't enough, updating it, not breaking it, smooth updates for users with little friction, not breaking profiles, no crashes, upgrade/update testing, library/version updates etc are all massively important.
Definitely better to have someone that has done some production on a live state of the game over someone that shipped and forgot, but both are better than no shipped title or production.
Experience is highly valuable but concrete examples of that which are done individually or completely self propelled, that is the way to be. Creating/shipping/projects to show does demonstrate experience and skills.
There can be people that have experience that can't ship, but if you created/projects/shipped and have less experience it truly demonstrates that you do have experience enough to be worthwhile and improve the place you are going to.
I'd argue even when I have had to interview or been on the hiring side, showing projects beats experience and education, it can also make interviews focused on your projects and what you bring rather than just whiteboard and talking about what you have done.
For instance when I went into gaming I had multiple games made for every place I was aiming for, i.e. a racing game at a racing game company, promotional games at advertising/promotional jobs, and networking/multiplayer shooters/online for more hardcore gaming on console and mobile.
Ultimately projects are the only way to get clients as a freelancer/small business pitching to clients, so that also works when going for full time employment and jobs.