Want to know why such-and-such wasn't done better in such-and-such a game? Perhaps the developer failed its morale check.

One of the reasons that professional game development can be so stressful is that everyone involved in each project has different complaints about the game they're working on and not everyone can get their own way. (This is perhaps also why a game made by just one or two people can sometimes feel like it was delivered at a higher standard to one made on a huge budget!) The larger the project, the more people want their viewpoint reflected in the game, and the more people will end up feeling disappointed.

On the whole, it's just part of the friction of development and needn't be a big problem, but it does have a significant cost. The developer's staff can often manage to negotiate a resolution to disagreements about this-and-that point amongst themselves, but when it comes to the publisher forcing these issues on the developer, it can have a serious effect on morale. The publisher may have dozens of people working on each particular game project, and once again each of these people has their own point of view they want to enforce – but because of the hierarchy that's usually in place, the publisher's demands almost always take precedence, irrespective of the validity of their complaints.

At first, the developer's staff will defend their position with the publisher; argue the merits, and consider the options. But as the project moves onwards and time begins to get short, it becomes harder and harder to justify wasting time on what are often fruitless discussions with the publisher's staff. Eventually, individuals who used to come to bat on any issue under discussion with optimistic fervour simply lose the ability to care – they fail their morale check, and just become focussed on getting the game out the door. The result is inevitably a lower quality game, since the best games almost always come into being because the developer cares about the game they are making.

Publishers believe, perhaps erroneously, that the only thing between success and failure is their vigilant reporting of the things that must be fixed. But in pursuing this kind of dogged agenda, they frequently ignore the morale of the developer. And in all honesty, the morale of the developer is perhaps the biggest single factor in determining what quality of game can be made for any given budget.