Smed won't rush this to meet a public milestone if it's not ready. Too much is on the line here. A failed launch would probably shut them down.
Tons is always on the line.
It boggles my mind how these companies can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on development over many years, get close to the finished product, and then rush it out the door not quite done causing a terrible launch and basically destroying their chance of long term success.
I could forgive the first company or two that did it, but with how many games have now done exactly the above I cannot see how something like a TESO launch is even allowed to happen at this point. Bad launches doom MMORPG's. There is no coming back from them, you have one chance and one chance only to release the game right and if you screw it up then you miss the chance of catching that initial influx of players and excitement that any MMORPG needs to last the long haul.
Devs need to get this through their heads, there is no "fixing" a game after launch. If you release before you should there is no fixing the damage you have done to your potential customer base, you will never be able to market the game or the changes you have made enough to make 5% of the people who tried the game at launch to take a second look or pay a sub once they have quit.
It is not about the game, it is about the perception of the game, you can fix a game, but you cannot fix what people think about your game after a bad launch.
It is like a new model of car, the initial ones out the door all have their wheels fall off, the brakes are terrible, many don't start, they are terrible on gas, they drive like crap, thousands of people have their vehicles recalled to fix a swarm of issues, the press lambastes the company for their terrible product.
Now a year later the problems are all fixed, people got their cars back and they actually seem to be pretty good now, the company really focused and fixed the issues and made the car everything it should have been to begin with.
But, your company is dead because none of the people who read those news stories about people who got these horrific cars are going to even think about buying your car now. Sure you fixed the issues, it might be the best car out there now, but the damage you did to the public image of that car is done and you cannot come back from it.
That is the MMORPG industry, they send out half finished products without enough testing, they have tons of issues and they crash and things don't work. The companies try to fix things, they get some of the stuff working well, but it is too late, the market image of their product is already finalized, you cannot change it, your game already has crap ratings in the PC game mags, it is already in the $15 bin at Walmart, the public have already decided your game sucks and they have already moved on.
