Civilization VII

[whydoibother]

It's hard to say exactly what went wrong, of course, but multiple someones on the team decided that this version was "good enough" for release.

TakeTwo probably pulled its release several months early, to avoid releasing at the same time as their other game this year - GTA6.

 

[thesheeep]

It's hard to say exactly what went wrong, of course, but multiple someones on the team decided that this version was "good enough" for release.

TakeTwo probably pulled its release several months early, to avoid releasing at the same time as their other game this year - GTA6.

That would be insanely stupid, given the probably incredibly low overlap of the target audience here. I mean, how many people would actually go "Man, I need to decide between GTA6 and Civ7 this weekend"

Then again...

I'm more willing to put this one on Take Two/2K (although I still think current year Firaxis are hacks, just not that too blame for the too early release), KSP2 was an even bigger shitshow when it was released, launched anyway in a clear "we need to recoup some cost at least" stunt. It's no coincidence this happened within the same corporate group again, especially when, as already mentioned, they are losing money for a long while now and GTA VI is not out until much later. Last year they caught flak from the stock market for higher than projected losses for the previous fiscal year (ending March 31st 2024).

Yeah, that sounds somewhat plausible. I honestly thought this was self-released for some reason.
Publishers add another layer of complexity/bullshit on top of normal management.