As someone with both AAA and game jam experience, you just put my vague misgiving about the AAA process right into words. This is exactly it.
At least my game jam teams have always focused on what the core game loop is first, built that, then iterated, and my AAA teams have always tried more of an assembly-line approach where there's no game at all until everyone's already feeling the pressure. Because supposedly it's more efficient to pre-plan everything and just trust that it all comes together perfectly (art, level design, system design, engineering, sound, etc) first try rather than leaving time to iterate.
Which kind of makes sense when much of generic management takes its cues from automotive manufacturing (assembly lines, Kanban, etc).
Interesting in the context of BGIII and its extended early access. I had to stop playing after a play through or two of EA because i wanted the game to still feel fresh when the entire game came out.
At least my game jam teams have always focused on what the core game loop is first, built that, then iterated, and my AAA teams have always tried more of an assembly-line approach where there's no game at all until everyone's already feeling the pressure. Because supposedly it's more efficient to pre-plan everything and just trust that it all comes together perfectly (art, level design, system design, engineering, sound, etc) first try rather than leaving time to iterate.
Which kind of makes sense when much of generic management takes its cues from automotive manufacturing (assembly lines, Kanban, etc).