The Next Penelope Post-Mortem
aurelregard.tumblr.com
aurelregard.tumblr.com
Maybe we, along with the author, should consider this write up a case study of a successful game launch, and adopt a more triumphant attitude in how we read it.
So in this context it's not a negative term but a neutral one encompassing both what went right and what went wrong. (And seems to me there were a couple of core lessons there, such as needing to consider ease of console ports when choosing development tools, and that data of indie game sales from a couple of years ago is mostly obsolete).