Greedy publishers screwing over Devs, or a dev shoving unfinished slop out in order to get a bonus?
Ultimately, I would still put blame on the publisher for dangling such a huge incentive over the devs heads. They probably didn’t think the devs could actually pull it off and are now scrambling to convince everyone it really isn’t ready.
Maybe if we had a functional government that gave a shit about innocent until proven guilty then this excuse would hold water. They shouldn’t release the files; they should use them as the basis for investigations and eventual prosecutions, because nobody can say for sure if every person on the list is guilty. But we can tell the excuses are bullshit because they’re just gonna sweep it all under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen,