Why release a product that isn't finished?
This morning I am going for coffee. I am in the coffee shop. I came here with $2.00 and an expectation. I am here to do business. I approach the counter and make my order, one large dark roast coffee, one sugar, one cream. The cute brunette girl behind the cash register asks me if that's all, tells me I owe her $1.90 and takes my money as I hand it to her. She thanks me for my business and I step aside to receive my coffee.
Inside my coffee cup is what I ordered. A large portion of dark roast coffee with 1 portion of sugar and 1 portion of cream mixed into it. I drink it and I enjoy it. I am a satisfied customer and I will return.
The way Blizzard does business is different, much like many other companies in the media industry.
If this was The Blizzard Cafe, not my favourite mom and pop coffee shop, I would receive my cup and inside would be a large portion of dark roast coffee, but it would be missing the cream and sugar. If this happened to me, I would ask the cute brunette girl, or in this case, more likely Jeff Kaplan, where my cream and sugar is and if I can have it. He would ignore me. I would quickly become angry and when he notices this he would respond, saying that the sugar is being processed and is on it's way. Not only that, the cream is still but cow's milk in the utter of a bovine in Iowa.
I would not be a satisfied customer.
I would ask for a refund, but then the manager would come and tell me that since I've spent so much time holding that coffee, and anxiously sipping on it while pleading to Jeff for a proper coffee, that it's gone cold and I've drank half of it and no refund is available.
I think at that point I would throw what's left of that coffee at the manager's face, yell obscenities, trash the place, and likely get arrested by the police upon leaving.