The 'Watch Dogs' Delay And What Investors Don't Get About Video Games

At this point, it’s a familiar story. A major release intended as a tent-pole franchise is delayed, and the publisher’s shares go tumbling. It happened with GTA 5, Bioshock Infinite, and now Watch Dogs. Ubisoft Stock fell more than 26 percent when the French company announced it would be delaying both Watch Dogs and The Crew into 2014. Unfortunately for the skittish investors unloading their stock, this trend just shouldn’t hold true for the games industry.

Games get delayed for all sorts of reasons: on a fundamental level, it’s true that games are delayed because of problems with their development. The scheduling wasn’t entirely accurate, the developer underestimated certain needs, or maybe some last minute bugs slowed down the approach to store shelves. Especially for major releases like this, we can assume that it boils down to a publisher wanting to release the most polished product possible. Here’s what Ubisoft said:

We know a lot of you are probably wondering: Why now? We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune each detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.

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