Let's be clear, though: developers did not make this decision. Managers and publishers did.
Those managers and publishers were likely looking at their burn rate and needed to get some funding to come in to keep the studio afloat. It's tough out there for games right now.
That's...a pretty big, pure guess there.
Not really. If they could afford to release it after optimizations, they would.
There is so much evidence of companies not doing the opposite, it seems like a really big assumption.
It is for me.
I get their argument that a city builder may not need high frame rates, but the 5-10 fps people have been reporting doesn't seem ideal either. The management definitely should have given the devs time to work out these issues, but I'd imagine the profits they made from going ahead with the launch will outweigh any criticisms.
I think they underestimated how dramatic this community can be. Which is surprising considering the map size whining that happened.
"Why bother? Some of those stupid modders will fix it for us in a few months"
No whining, no drama, just no sale, like many others will do. This move creates doubts about what other problems were considered acceptable. The first game is pretty good, and waiting a bit will likely see a discount and possibly a better game.