The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367

An empirical study on the factors influencing failure

of software products in gaming related domains
Jacob Jayakar Royal #1, Dr. Shriram Kothapalli *2, Siva K Reddy Bora#3
#
School of Management Research and Innovation, CMR University
1
[email protected] 2 [email protected]
3
[email protected]

Abstract— Software product development has evolved from using a standard waterfall model to using an Agile, Lean, Continuous
Delivery (CD), and Dev Ops practices for the cloud-based platform products. Our business world is transforming day by day at
lightning speed, completely driven by data and technology. Despite involving customers throughout the development cycle of a product,
many companies are struggling to come up with a new successful software product that lasts for longer time. Companies are so focused
on designing and manufacturing new products that they postpone the hard work of getting ready to market them until too late in the
game. There must be reasons beyond just gathering inputs from customers, using data driven and customer driven approaches in
development that are causing product failures in the market. The primary objective of this paper is to identify the factors in general that
influence the failures in software products in gaming related domains and identify the major causes of software product failures and
substantiate them. Among some of the major contributors to software product failures in gaming domain, lack of planning, lack of
proper execution and lack of testing are the key factors. Out of our analysis based on surveys and interviews, majority opine that
software testing is the phase which contributes maximum number of errors during software product development life cycle. This result
is also correlating with the number of software products that failed in this domain.

Keywords— Software product management, reasons for software failures, factors influencing software failures, errors in software
product development, phase-wise contribution of defects in software development.

I. INTRODUCTION
Startup companies have been recognized as the key drivers to the overall economic growth of developing countries. They open
opportunities to embrace technological advancements for quality life of citizens and they have potential to provide employment
opportunities to many people. However, most of the start-ups that came up with promising and innovative ideas have failed to
produce results as successful businesses in the market, thereby closing such start-ups.
According to Fortune.com, 9 out of 10 start-ups fail. Statisticbrain.com claims that only 50% of start-ups survive across
industries after 4 years. In India alone, according to Xeler8 research data, 2,281 of such start-up ventures have opened since July
2014 out of which 997 have been shut down – a failure rate of 43.7%. The average age of failed ventures is 11.5 months. A key
argument for such failures is the lack of competence in adapting proper management system to confront the current world of
competition and technology advancements. There is lot of data around, within, and across the businesses. If this data is not utilized
effectively and efficiently within businesses, it is difficult for organizations to scale up and meet the market challenges.
Organizations need to understand from time to time about their position in the markets to focus their products in the right direction.
In view of these developments, it is imperative to manage existing products effectively and deliver disruptive products to sustain
and be successful in the business. The product development industry is characterized by rapid innovation. More so now, with
emergence of Machine Learning, Artificial intelligence, and analytics.
How an organization can institutionalize a product management system that delivers a steady stream of breakthroughs? Apple
has done well, but Apple has not delivered a product on the level of the iSeries since Jobs passed away. Investors are waiting to
see if Apple can continue its string of successes -- a hard act to follow. Purely intuitive product management may face extinction
if valuable information provided by data is ignored. At the same time, organizations that can implement data-driven intuition
towards product development, will remain in demand, and increasingly so. While intuitive decision-making will always exist,
product managers who rely solely on their intuition are soon to be a thing of the past in the wake of big data and data-driven
decision making.

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The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367

In 2007, when Microsoft launched Windows Vista, the media and the public had high expectations. So, did the company, which
allotted $500 million for marketing and predicted that 50% of users would run the premium edition within two years. But the
software had so many compatibility and performance problems that even Microsoft’s most loyal customers revolted. Vista flopped.
In this case delaying the product launch till it is ready might have averted the situation. But, we do not know what causes failures
in some of the products despite involving customers in development stages early on and making the product development cycles
data-driven. Sometimes, even if the products show signs of success, the company may not be ready yet to ramp up quickly thus
causing eventual downfall of product’s success.
II. OBJECTIVES
Objectives of this study are as follows:
 Identify the major factors that are influencing the failure of software products in gaming related domains.
 Prepare relevant questionnaire and conduct a survey among the software product companies that are related to gaming
domains.
 Conduct an empirical study to validate the hypothesis and provide inferences and insights based on analysis of the survey
results.
III. WHY DO SOFTWARE PRODUCTS FAIL?

According to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, each year more than 30,000 new products are launched
and 80% of them fail. Ask anyone what percentage of new products fail. The usual answer is somewhere between 70-90 percent.
Up to 80% of new product launches in the industry fail.
These failures are defined in terms of cost and schedule over-runs, project cancellations, and lost opportunities for the
organizations that embark on the difficult journey of software development. A key issue is whether high levels of quality can be
achieved without adversely impacting cycle time and effort. Conventional beliefs hold that processes to improve software quality
can be implemented only at the expense of longer cycle times and greater development effort. However, an alternate view is that
quality improvement, faster cycle time, and effort reduction can be simultaneously attained by reducing defects and rework. The
products in this domain look promising with all the attractive features and catchy marketing campaigns but they are not able to
sustain in the longer run due to quality and sustenance issues.
One of the reasons presumed is lack of proper testing involved during product development. This may be due to improper
product management system within the organization. Even though many organizations invest huge amount of their time and
efforts in product design and development, if there are no proper processes and systems in place for effective software product
management and testing, the products eventually fail. In most of the companies there are professional testing teams which are
dedicated to carrying out testing activities once the software development is complete. Though there are several developments in
software engineering processes such as Agile, dev ops and Lean, effective implementation and utilization of these processes may
be lacking in some companies.

IV. HYPOTHESIS

Some of the hypotheses identified are as follows:

Primary hypothesis: More than external factors, lack of implementation of some basics in software product development
processes may cause software failures.
Secondary hypothesis: Lack of proper testing of software products may cause majority of software failures.
Third hypothesis: lack of involvement of testing teams in the key phases of software development process may cause majority
of software failures.
V. LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH GAPS

It has been suggested that there is more than one reason for a software development product to fail. However, most of the
literature that discusses software product failure tends to be rather general, supplying us with lists of risk and failure factors, and
focusing on the negative business effects of the failure. Very little research has attempted on in-depth investigation of several
failed products to identify exactly what are the factors behind the failure. And, what are the root causes for such product failures.
Empirical study of root cause analysis of software failure, by Sandeep Dalal et al (2013) Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is the
process of identifying project issues, correcting them and taking preventive actions to avoid occurrences of such issues in the
future. Issues could be variance in schedule, effort, cost, productivity, expected results of software, performance parameters and
customer satisfaction. RCA also involves collecting valid data, analysing it, deriving metrics and finding root causes using RCA
methods.

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RCA also involves collecting valid data, analysing it, deriving metrics and finding root causes using RCA methods. In this
paper, Root cause analysis was conducted on some severe software failures that happened in the past and of some failures in
ongoing projects in the software Industry. The paper described various RCA methods and processes used in the software Industry
to reduce the chances of software failure.
Risk-based Testing Techniques: A Perspective Study, by Md. Mottahir Alam et al (2013)
Testing is of different types and risk-based testing (RBT) is considered as one testing which is used to optimize available
resources and time without affecting the quality of your product. In RBT, each test is intended to probe a specific risk that was
previously identified through risk analysis. Any uncertainty or possibility of loss may result in non-conformance of any of these
key factors, leading to overtime / over-budget or poor-quality project. Software risks, which impact above 3 key factors:
 Requirements risks
 Schedule risks and
 Technical risks
The usage of RBT brings several advantages to the testing organization. Some of them are listed below:
 Running the tests in risk order gives the highest likelihood of discovering defects in severity order.
 Preventive activities can be started immediately as problem areas are discovered early in RBT.

VI. SURVEY ON PRODUCT FAILURES

Surveys have become one of the most popular quantitative research methods for a reason. They allow us to research problems
on virtually unlimited test samples. In fact, the larger the test sample, the better results you can expect. Naturally, the quality of
survey results correlates to your sample as well as variables used to construct research questions. A survey has been conducted
with a sample set close to 100 such software product development companies around the world and the results have been analysed
to correlate the hypothesis and substantiate the facts.

VII. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

To start with, the analysis of the respondent companies has revealed that there is a contribution from all phases of software
product development cycle to the failure of software products. As per the results from a sample size of 60 companies and further
analysis, it indicates that there has been 62 instances of software failures occurring from all the 6 phases of software product
development cycle.

Figure 1. Phase-wise failure times of software

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The International journal of analytical and experimental modal analysis ISSN NO: 0886-9367

One of the key findings from survey was to identify what best practices are being followed by some of the successful product
companies to prevent failure of software products. During the survey, it has been identified that prioritizing communication across
all stakeholders during product development cycle is one of the key success factors. It also indicates the importance of software
product testing in the software product development cycle that would impact on the success of the product.

Figure 2. Best practices followed by companies enabling product success

To further substantiate the hypothesis on whether testing is the primary reason for failures in software product development, the
following survey result depicts the responses from some of the companies on the causes of failure.

Figure 3. Testing as a cause of software failure.

VIII. CONCLUSIONS

 Implementing proper communication across all stakeholders of software product development cycle can prevent failures.
 Implementing software testing practices at all stages of software product development cycles will prevent software
product failures and contribute to success.
 It has been observed that almost all phases of software product development life cycle contribute to failure of software
products.
 Among some of the major contributors to software product failures in gaming domain, lack of planning, lack of proper
execution and lack of testing are the key factors.
 Out of survey results, majority opine that software testing is the phase which contributes maximum number of errors
during software product development life cycle. This result is also correlating with the number of software products that
failed in this domain.

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REFERENCES

[1] Sandeep Dalal, Dr. Rajender Singh Chhillar, ―Case Studies of Most Common and Severe Types of Software System Failure‖, International Journal of
Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, Vol. 2, Issue 9, 2012.
[2] Sandeep Kumar Nayak, Raees Ahmad Khan and Md. Rizwan Beg (2012), ―Requirement Defect Identification, an Early Stage Perspective‖, IJCSI
International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 9, Issue 5, No 1, 2012.
[3] Vijayan. K, ―Drivers of New Product Success‖, Journal of Advances in Management, Volume 6, Issue 9, 2015.
[4] Vikas Sitaram Chomal, Dr. Jaitinderkumar R. Saini, ―Cataloguing Most Severe Causes that Lead Software Projects to Fail‖, International Journal on Recent
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[5] Joan Schneider and Julie Hall (2011). The Harvard Business Review. [Online]. Available: https://hbr.org/2011/04/why-most-product-launches-fail
[6] Duncan Simester (2016). Sloan review, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [Online]. Available: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-great-new-
products-fail

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