Yesterday’s announcement that the highly anticipated Wii U exclusive, Rayman Legends, would be delayed by seven months due to it making its way onto the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 was a rather nasty shock for Wii U owners preparing to get their mitts on the gorgeous platformer.

Beyond the rather disturbing pleasure that some people take at seeing the platform fail to keep its exclusives and what it tells us about Nintendo’s ability to maintain strong third party support, I was mainly just disappointed to find out that I’d have to wait for over half a year to get to enjoy a game that was almost finished. And just so Ubisoft could make some money from PS3 and 360 users while saving cash on two expensive marketing campaigns, I should add.

Caught up in my own dismay, I forgot to spare a thought for the people that actually worked on the title, and how the fruit of their labours is now postponed due to publisher avarice. An ex-developer for the title — who left the company last month — was not content to let this slide, and took to the Spanish forum EOL (translation available at NeoGAF) to condemn Ubisoft for its actions. They did not hold back.

Not at all surprisingly, they confirmed that the decision had bugger all to do with the development team, instead coming from somewhere “really high up”, no doubt a place where heads are so far up asses that they are looking at their own teeth.  ”If you’re pissed, imagine how we feel.” The rightly irate dev continued. “Think on the situation, we’ve been making overtime with this game practically since May preparing E3, and then almost a demo per month (gamescon, Wii U presentation, shops, eShop, etc…) and at the same time trying to actually finish the game.

“We had a first delay because it was obvious we couldn’t finish on time but we gave it all to be there on February. What face do you think we had when the week we had to close the game we’re being told it’s not going to be released? I couldn’t believe it.”

Ubisoft are just sitting on the game, the publisher’s PR machine confirmed to Digital Spy. “The only reason for the delay is to release on multiple platforms.” It’s ready now, we could play it now, it could be reviewed, and the development team could finally see what people thought of their game and take a well deserved rest. Instead, they now have to wait for seven months with the rest of us.

The one time Legends developer hammers that point home. “For practical matters, you’ll have to wait for some months for the game to be released and will most likely serve for more content to be added and do it better. For us, this means we’ve spent 6 months barely seeing our wives, kids, and friends for nothing because, after all, such a haste wasn’t needed. Believe it, it was a hell to swallow these news.”

I’m still incredibly excited about the game, and I certainly can’t feel any ill will towards the development team, but the threats of boycotting Ubisoft and all that other nonsense will harm far more people who had nothing to do with this decision, while those responsible will likely continue do what they do.

“Rayman Legends is an excellent game and will still be, and the team that’s making it doesn’t deserve to have your back turned on them just because some men in ties one day took a wrong choice. This industry is really that shitty.”

It really is.

Via Eurogamer