My goal is to create a company based on creating fantasy games (RPGs, Adventures). I've been working on my first commercial attempt for quite sometime and estimate that it will take quite a bit more time before it is finished... Looking around at a possible 10-12 months.

However I had an idea to create a quick simple adventure style game just to get a first game out there and maybe bring in a little bit of money as I work on my larger project. However, since it will be a lot more simple then my main project, it will give my company a lower first impression then I would receive if I just released my main project first. Should I just go ahead and release a simple game for the learning experience and extra income as I work on my main game? Or would it be better to just stay completely focused with my current project.

I think it depends just how badly you need to get money coming in immediately. I personally have considered similiar things, but reached that conclusion that creating a "smaller program" that would be of the high quality that I want people to associate with the company name would take much longer than I was willing to dedicate.

Getting a program 90% done is easy. The last 10% of polish and testing and fixing can take far longer than anticipated (CustomBar had a release date of early 2003 initially, boy was I ever wrong). You have to test the product on multiple systems, create an installer, add all the pretty menu graphics and order screens and about boxes and other crazy things, do some more testing, setup payment systems, create a web site, spend weeks advertising it, it's a lot of work.

Is this a product that you want to have? Are you willing to spend the next (b x 2) months working on this, where b is your intial estimate of how long it will take? Is it something that you would be willing to support after the initial release? What will your future be like if you don't release the smaller product? Would you still be able to reach quality expectations on your main game, or would you have to release it before its ready due to low funds?

To me, there is nothing wrong with releasing a smaller product, but I would never release one that I felt to be of subpar quality. There's definitely advantages to releasing a smaller product, and if you look through these forums you'll see a lot of people here have had some good success with smaller games.

Personally I spent 2 years on CustomBar, so I know how painful it can be waiting that long before getting to the release stage. I actually did pause for two months to do a software contract and picked up the occassional web dev contract, and I'm also quite busy during the day with web hosting (getting busier as business booms). Those things all had predetermined pay-offs though, so I knew exactly what I was getting into and what the costs and rewards were. It's a much harder decision when the thing you are delaying your project for is full of its own uncertainties.

Do the simple game first. The experience you get with that will allow you to do the next one better.

It's better to have a finished mediocre game than an unfinished uber ultimate game.

it depends. if you have never finished a commercial game before then DEFINITELY do small one first. you can relese it under a different name if your worried about reputation. Its a major learning experience.
Dont expect to ever change your name though. these things stick around. You think "positech computinG" is my ideal games company name? It was the name of my old IT consultancy firm and I kept it for my first shareware game i expected to sell 2 copies of. I sold over a hundred and never got round to changing the name...