I don't understand game publisher nowadays

if game not ready to release why not delay release like ago ?

money first fix later ?

Resident Evil 6,ORC

BattleField 4

Batman Arkham Origins

Etc.

@gantarat: Just a little FYI before I keep typing, I am not in the gaming industry but I feel like I know a thing or two about the ethincs that goes on behind the scenes of making games. So if I am utterly wrong, please call me out.

In the publisher's eye, delaying a game is something they don't ever want to consider for their product. If you don't already know, publishers answer to the investors, who are the ones funding the game's development. Pushing a game back, cost the investors more money to hand over, and investors wonder if there is something going seriously wrong on the developer/publishing side. Which ends up losing the trust of the investors for any future projects with that developer or publisher. So basically, the developers and publishers get a bad rep in the business world.

It also knocks up everyone's else job as well. Example is for PR and Marketing, they now need to find ways to do damage control for the public and convince the consumers that there project is still of value. This requires project heads to speak up and give convincing quotes on why they are pushing their game back and why extra time will make their game better. A push back of release for the developers means both a sign of a relief and a sign to get on working! Just cause they got extra time don't mean they get to stand around the water cooler all day and talk about the ball game. If the developers don't show they are using their time wisely to the managers, it leaves again a bad rep for the company and employees.

You are right that it is money first fix later. It is much much cheaper to release a patch for a problem than to delay the full release. If you don't already know this, most games are shipped with the developers knowing they are ground breaking glitches in them. I am not talking about those glitches that only some people run into. I am talking about glitches and bugs that could ruin your whole game. The developers just cross their fingers hoping no one finds them or run into them. They usually have one big list of glitches and bugs the QA (video game testing) department found that they never fixed. Because when it comes to coding, if you fix one bug, you create a dozen other ones. That's why they most of the time they only fix major problems and small stuff that could hinder the final product a lot.

I hope that helped!

President Evil 6 was ready. It just wasn't..... well thought out.

Same Goes for Bioshock Infinite.

could also have something to do with marketer and publisher ignorance.

If a game gets delayed,it usually gets canned or comes out with an added mp mode/more broken than before.the trade off is usually never good.

A buggy game can cause long-term damage, to the game and any future games from the company or game series.

Simcity had a lot of things in it that should have been fixed before release but even after they fixed the drm problem a year later its already damaged goods. EA also did the same thing with Spore, i found this game really poorly put together. EA even did this with Ultima 9 way back in the late 90s, this game was broken at release, and was death for the Ultima series and for Origin by having a rushed bugged release.

Its been bad since consoles have had internet access, they figure they can patch the problems later to fix their broken games. PC games were almost always buggy at release and you could always expect a patch very soon after release... who knew it would take EA a whole year to patch a simple online drm problem when pirate hackers had it figured out on their own months before they did.

It's all about teh moniez.

well, we should ask QA teams this question :)

sometimes all depends on a game genre. If it's a free-to-play online updatable game - then there is a lot of sense in pre-launching it, reaping early feedback from testers ans common gamers, thus making a game better together with gamers, making it ultimately close to what gamers want to receive and play. As of premium games, if this or that happens to be laggy after you buy it... well, it's a terrible mistake by a publisher, who was in a hurry trying to release the game. Here I agree with @behardy24

@gantarat:

Because, "Ago", consoles didn't have a way to install patches. Publishers had to get it right the first time.
Which is why, Ar Tonelico 2 still has a broken Boss Battle in it.

Games get delayed all the time though.

Old games were broken too. It was just "oh well" with no hope of the being fixed.

That video makes a lot of sense.