Rome 2 Patches, Hotfixes, Betas and Such (patch 17 live!)

[fallen851]

You know, I actually believe them. Often times greedy publishers will try to get developers to rush games out unfinished. That does not absolve CA of responsibility though. It is them making the game, and it is their responsibility to say 'no' to SEGA and not release them a working build to publish. It is their responsibility to demand more time to at least make sure that the game is in a working state before releasing it, even if it is not perfect. People expect the publisher to be unprincipled (they always are), but the developers should not be.
Grow some backbone CA. It is your reputation that is gonna take the hit, and if no one buys your next games, it will be you out of a job. Stand up for yourselves and your fans.

It might have been Sega asking CA how much time they needed for Rome II, and CA stating "we need X amount of time." Sega then provides that amount of time and creates their yearly budget with that in mind. CA can't finish it in time (I mean, how often do contractors finish on time... rarely...) and Sega says "no extensions, you told us you needed X amount of time and we gave it to you." Game gets released as is... in this case the blame lies solely with the developer.

Either way, it was a poorly managed by one or both parties and the result is an unfinished game. A company that has a reputation of releasing superior products soils it very quickly when they release mediocre products. In fact, releasing mediocre products is first step that many great companies take that ultimately leads to their failure. Rome II still has a lot going for it though if CA commits to the patches, and does more than fix bugs with them.

Finally, and I don't know if CA was responsible for this or Sega, but the marketing department had way too much money for all the fancy videos, that could have gone into more coders, artists, ect... those buffoons in rally point were a complete waste.