This is what I hate soo much. A developer works their butt off on a major title for a publisher, the title is 99.9% complete but the publisher axes it at the last minute. It makes no sense from a business or even artistic point of view. So it will cost a fortune to advertise with a marketing campaign, then don't. Release it with a two to five million ad campaign. The game will sell regardless of advertising if it is based on an existing IP. If its a new IP maybe look to a publisher to bring it to market, if you can't afford to launch it out source and let someone else. It makes absolutely no sense to spending all that money developing the title just to cancel it at last minute. I'm not sure the title nearly finished was Battlefront 3 I don't think anyone in charge at LucasArts would be stupid enough to cancel an entry in one of its most successful Star Wars games. Now if the game wasn't the quality they expected and required then I need to wonder how they let it get that far. A lot of publisher execs I hear interviewed state that they check in on projects on a regular basis. I cant see a game getting to 99% finished and the publisher at last minute realizing it is shit.
Regardless of what game it was, Lucas Arts should never have canned it. The second project maybe, it was still early enough in its development cycle that it wouldn't be a massive loss. But a game that's already complete what a waste of resources!
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
