I agree with the comments regarding Oblivion but what I was talking about was communication. Where were Pete Hines or Todd Howard after the game was released? Their names popped up all over the web before the game's release as they gave hundreds of interviews, diaries, videos, presentations etc. and then when the game was out, they all disappeared all of a sudden. To me this always leaves the impression of them grabbing the cash hastily and going 'kthxbye'
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It would have been nice of them to just make a simple statement about the known quest and gameplay bugs to let people know if/when to expect a patch. To top it off, they released crap like the horse armor mod before any patches or before even a statement about an upcoming patch.
Kind of the same with JoWood/PB. JoWood Producer Michael Paeck and PB's Kai Rosenkranz were very active in the media and in communicating with the public and the fans before the game's release, obviously to advertise for the game and to boost sales. Where are they now? This makes them look pretty bad IMHO. Not saying a single thing about a game that very many people are not happy with in its current state is like saying 'Thanks for the cash and STFU'. This is a case where silence is worse than anything else they could say or do.
Oh, and regarding the "early" release date, well, I think we've been through this a few times already back at the Dot but here we go again.
There's an interview at WoG where Kai Rosenkranz of PB pretty much accepts full responsibility because of the way that PB is working (putting together all separately developed game systems at the very last minute).
The release date was not imposed or forced upon them by JoWood. PB got several extensions in the past already and Kai Rosenkranz said in that interview that they were very happy to have JoWood as a publisher because any one of the larger publishers probably would have forced them to make cuts and to release the game a lot earlier even (KotOR 2 anyone?).
Nah. This is not a case of rushing the product to market. The release date was decided upon cooperatively by JoWood and PB. From everything that is known from official sources, it looks like it's PB who screwed up because they didn't manage to deliver any ready-for-testing builds (release candidates) when the testing was scheduled. Instead they sent new builds to JoWood "every other day" according to that interview (you know, like "OK, we're done, this build is it"... two days later... "no wait... check this one"... another two days later... "gaaahh dammit... no this one is really the final one now"... another two days later... and so on...).