"Easier for ask for forgiveness than permission": perhaps, but it's not obvious to me. One the one hand, a further delay risks losing out a big part of sales.

"Easier for ask for forgiveness than permission": perhaps, but it's not obvious to me. One the one hand, a further delay risks losing out a big part of sales. Dedicated fans will buy anyway, but presumably a large fraction of preorders came from people who just jumped on the hype. And who knows if you can recreate this hype after the pandemic ends, after other games come out, after you delay the release over and over. And yes, you can fix some of the damage later. On the other hand, the company had an incredible reputation for quality, maybe one of the best in the industry. How much of the lost reputation will not be recovered, even after all the refunds and patches? Future games will get less preorders, so less cashflow, so more dependence on external funding - an extra source of risks and tension. Future games will not get as much hype, so will sell less. Even hiring might suffer as the best candidates are quite sensitive to the employer reputation.