I have just realized that noone has even mentioned the most famous example of a pilot game: Portal. It's funny that it took me so long to realize that Portal fits the bill perfectly; now that I think of it Orange Box's model actually makes sense. Bundling a short game representing a new IP with a more popular title seems…
Hybrid. I'm not sure that's a great example, given that it doesn't appear to be utilising any of the unique aspects of Scribblenauts and Drawn to Life and on first glance appears to be a generic, post-apocalyptic 3rd person shooter.
As stated already, awesome read, truthful and to the point with no agenda. I'm new to game design myself, but my main issue with this article is it sounds like it assumes great games are more an accident than we give good design teams credit for. Lemme use the already referenced example, Minecraft. Was it the product of 10…