Eyeoftiger said:
This is hilarious. People ***** and moan all the time about games being pushed back on their release date, but when a game is released and there are bugs, EVERYONE and their mother is clamoring on and on about how the game company should have waited to release the game to fix the problems.
Hypocrites...thy name is typical gamer.
typical unintelligent mind working there.
i think you're misunderstanding why most poeple complain about waiting/not waiting. a company (any company, not just games or software) puts out an early release date NOT so much b/c they think that's actually when they can get it done, but b/c the date lends itself better to any number of things (holidays, summer vacations, company getting sold, etc.).
think of how many movies are slated for release BEFORE THEY'RE EVEN MADE! then when the director doesn't make the cut, they often push back the release months, sometimes years, merely b/c they want to release it at a certain time of the year.
my point, is that were the game maker to say (some 3 years ago), "look for Civ IV xmas 2005!!!". that's a marketing date, not a programming date. so now they've reversed engineered the release so that the guys who MAKE the game have to meet deadlines along the way. a missed deadline or two by any number of sub-teams will delay the product setting up an clash between the build team and the marketing team. delay and lose sales? or push it out knowing it's broken and take the heat?
frankly, i don't like either scenario b/c they're both driven only by the desire to get my $$. and that seems to lead companies, and people, to act in THEIR best interests, not mine. so...don't give me a firm release until and unless you can meet it with a finished product. AND don't stick to the release (that they set!!!) if your product isn't satisfactory (or better!!).
