> Your software is your product. The primary cost of software is NOT the initial development: It is the ongoing maintenance. When you cut corners, you are taking out a loan against your future sanity and time. Higher quality code bases and better practices lead to stability, ease of extension, and more money.

I want to agree with this attitude, I really do. But with how crowded the indie game market is right now, I understand the urge to move fast and loose. Games already take years to develop and are incredibly expensive, and hiring additional developers is incredibly expensive. Considering the tiny chance your game will be successful and make its money back, why would you spend tons of time frontloading work to avoid future maintenance? In all likelihood, nobody will play your game and it won't matter! And in the off chance it does get popular, you can go back and clean things up later... definitely... right?