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The idea of "release early" is to get early feedback from a customer. In the context of games, you may want to present the idea of the game or some screenshots to a small circle of gamers to get their feedback about if the idea is funny enough. It probably does not make sense to release more than one version of a game, except your game is evolving permantently with new levels, new creatures, new ideas.

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I agree. Games tend to be much less malleable than web applications. For one, web apps are much easier to change after release than other products because there is no distribution problem - just push the code and you're done. And in general, users have a more well-defined set of expectations from a game than from a web app - if you miss those expectations, you can be toast.

I guess one way to push the release date up would be to cut some of the content and pack it in an expansion pack or later update. But the 1.0 version has to be solid, otherwise no one will stick around long enough for the expansion.

I'm making web based games so it is very easy to tweak and re-release (people don't even have to know you've changed it) but there has to be a minimum level of quality and fun to begin with. Starting with a single, well polished level, and going from there sounds like the best strategy. I can add more or change it based on feedback.

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