You’re right that more money and time doesn’t necessarily equate to more success. Although I’m not a game designer, I am a software designer — I came away from your article with two major takeaways:

Big ideas can trump big budgets:

No matter how big the budget for a project, if the game idea is terrible or the execution is flawed, no amount of investment is going to convince people to buy the game. You have to have a great idea to begin with — often, the best ideas tend to be incredibly simple, too (this is what makes such great ideas hard to come by, I think).

Build small, and learn early:

I think I’ve mentioned this before in response to one of your articles, but it really holds true for almost any software project — don’t build for 6 months and then discover that your idea doesn’t work, or doesn’t have an audience. Find ways to build small, testable components that you can learn from. The ability to take a game into early access and build up a small community early on can be really crucial, and I think it’s awesome that platforms like Steam encourage this. Consoles are starting to do it too, albeit more slowly (the Xbox One is probably the most open to early access content at the moment).