Strategy Informer  

I had high expectations for this game. Such a shame they had to ruin it.

It's just one of those things were you're surprised they didn't see what was going to happen. and if they did, why on earth they would keep going.

I don't quite get it from his wording, did Paradox see what the game was like and released it anyway or were they told the game was ok and they simply believed it without actually checking?

From what I hear, it was a bit of both.

In the beginning I think it was the latter - they took Kerberos' word that everything was fine, but then it became the former. They knew what state the game was in when they released it.

Fact is they couldn't spend any more money on it, so it was a choice of either cancelling the whole project or releasing it as is and dealing with the fallout. By the time it was released it was already a year behind schedule.

That seems the most likely case to me too.

It's too bad the handled it the wrong way though, they should have simply given the people that had preordered an "early beta access" and everyone would have been happy. People would feel privileged to be playing an unfinished game and at the same time the money would be rolling in to cover the costs of making the game at least playable if not quite finished.

The way they handled things left them with an angry fanbase and a game with horrible reviews that will have a very difficult time to ever sell.
The only way i see this sell again is an expansion with good reviews, and considering that even the base game is not finished yet that might take a long time.

Reminds of me "The King's Crusade", bug-ridden on release and never fully fixed. Abandoned save for some desperate last minute DLC. Doesn't fix the main game though. There is only so much that a Patch can do, no matter how many.
Best to withdraw the product from sale, work on it for another 6 months then re-release it (free for those who've already bought it).

You say that but that involves spending more money - something which Paradox couldn't afford to do.

Basically they'd worked thelselves into a financial corner. If signs had been apparent to Paradox earlier on, they might have been able to work something out or otherwise cancel the project. I don't think they were at fault when it came to that.

Now the reason why those signs were not apparent, that's a different story.

Anyway i don't think this will hurt them in the long run, it caused a ton of anger at that moment but i believe that they'll simply be forgiven. Paradox has too good of a track record when it comes to supporting their games for people to keep a lasting grudge.
Unless it happens again in the near future which is unlikely since they apparently changed their practices.

Well, Kerberos has an excellent track record supporting their games. I got the suspicion that Paradox is looking for ways to attach explosives to Kerberos employee car's ignition switches or something. Passive aggressive much Paradox?

Ultimately many 2011 titles released in a bad state ("Red Orchestra 2", "BF3" for example), and it took many patches to get the game(s) to an acceptable state. Last year will go down as Annus Horribilis for videogaming, where PC titles are concerned anyway.