Disclaimer: This is not a rant against delays. I'm not saying delays do not help to finish the product. It's a rant against people claiming that a delay is a good move and that the game is better off with it. It's not a good move, it's their god damn duty to delay a game if it's not in a playable state.
I'm sick and tired of this narrative.
People claiming that companies are so smart to delay a game because they have more time to fix it. Well I call bullshit. Games aren't delayed because the developers want to make it perfect, they are delayed because they cannnot even be released in the state that they're in. It's not about making the games perfect, it's about making them actually playable.
Point 1: How would you know what things they are "fixing" during the extended time period? How would you know that it's for the good of the game. For all we know they could use that time to perfect their DRM or closing more marketing deals.
Point 2: A lot of games get delayed without us even knowing it. Are the games better because of it? No one is making that claim. Is a game that is released "on time" less perfect because they should've taken more time? No, because we don't know what happened during production. People will always say that they should've taken more time to polish a game but that's not how it works. They're only trying to make it as playable as possible.
Point 3: Longer development time does not mean higher quality experience.
Point 4: Look at all the games that have been released. Any of them close to perfect? How about those games that were delayed because they wanted to make them better? Any difference to games that release on time? The answer is no.
At the end of the day it comes down to this: There are 2 reasons for a product to be delayed. Someone sucks at project management or someone sucks at producing the product. Take your pick. But just don't expect games to be better because of delays.
So just please don't give companies credit for sucking at their job.
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