Frogacuda

If there are a substantial amount of new people left to buy this thing (and there may well be), you'll chase away a good deal of them by releasing the game incomplete. People are distrustful of games getting split up like this (and for good reason) so it's going to hurt sales. And again if those sales are needed to fund the rest of the game, then it's more broken promises. It really just doesn't feel like the right decision for this particular game.

In other cases where these companies are better funded, more trusted by consumers, etc it may be less problematic, but even then it's hard to guage the impact it has on sales.

Call it ridiculous, but it's happened countless times in the past. I bought Sin Episodes, Insecticide, Bone, Penny Arcade (which sort of finished in a radically different form, but still...).
 
Broken Age split their release up at great expense to the company, and luckily they can afford to do that, but it shouldn't be regarded as a guarantee. When companies split a game up to bankroll the remainder they often end up disappointed. Not only that, but I'd argue it undermines a game's ability to sell well; Broken Age should really have done much better considering its high profile and positive reviews, but it didn't because people don't want to buy half a game. They'll never make up the sales later, either since by the time it's whole, people will no longer care in the same way.
 
 
If you can guarantee (i.e. have the money and scheduling accounted for) that the whole game can be made, then there's no reason to split it up in the first place. Just make the whole thing. The problem is that companies split these releases up because they need money to finish the game, which is NOT a guarantee, and then they fuck themselves over in the process.

I didn't really mean it as a defense. I'm just saying I've talked to the guy and that's what I think it is with him.