It worked for Valve.
Valve aimed for a November 1997 release to compete with Quake II .[13][14] By September 1997, the team found that while they had built a number of innovative aspects in weapons, enemies, and level design, the game was not fun and there was little design cohesion.[13] The company postponed the release and reworked every level. …
Source and more details:
Half-Life (video game) - Wikipedia
On the other hand CCP is not Valve. 