I believe it. All it takes is one higher up executive to pick a launch date and mandate that it happens, damn the torpedoes. This says nothing about the competence of the engineers and their managers in the trenches.
I mean, you could question their willingness to work at the company. But, working on the latest sim city sounds like a fun project and people like paychecks.
Bingo! As a former EA senior engineer, my money is on someone in EA marketing setting the dates and forcing an 80-hour week crunch time for the duration of this title's production. They probably even brought in "experts" who ignored foundation code and slammed in their own logic "'cause it works" and now they have a clusterfuck of logic no one understands. Been there, been screwed by their managers, and left for good. EA can rot in hell.
I mean, you could question their willingness to work at the company. But, working on the latest sim city sounds like a fun project and people like paychecks.