Originally Posted by
drwaffles
This is dumb. There is no way in hell the number of potential customers that would've been lost by releasing the "finished" game a few months later would've come anywhere close to matching the number of potential customers they've lost forever by releasing it too early in its current, broken state. Fucking up and then regaining the trust of whatever playerbase remains will not make the game "better" than if they'd released it when it was actually ready and thus gotten a favourable reception. You're certainly correct concerning the fact that releasing a product early can sometimes be an effective business strategy, but it's a disastrous one for something like an MMO where first impressions are absolutely crucial.