There is a big difference between lying, and being overly optimistic and trying your best to meet an unrealistic deadline.
Studio Wildcard, like CIG, is guilty of optimism but not of lying.
This is their second game. The first was handled the same - missing deadlines but still working very hard to develop the game as quickly as possible. Anybody who is upset with them is really just upset with themselves for not realizing the truth of the situation and then coming to such realization on hard terms.
Any amount of research whatsoever into the company should have convinced people that, not only is the game likely to be delayed, but it will be a buggy, laggy mess, which then gets fixed over days/weeks/months of early access testing. That is what happened with ARK, and it turned out to be a great game. This looks like ARK v2 so you should expect the same in this case IMO.
I think part of the issue is the culture that has developed around gaming. Once upon a time, gamers were a very forgiving bunch. We openly praised games despite their flaws. Over time though, some developers started taking advantage of that forgiveness. They twisted our faith and forgiveness into gullibility and stupidity. Pre-orders, microtransactions, DLC, "beta" access, and hype trains were advertised as amazing rewards but in reality, were just tactics deployed to gain access to our wallets.
Fast forward to today. Some developers build trust and some take advantage of it. The problem is, every time one developer builds some trust in the community, there are ten more waiting to take advantage of that trust. They both use the same words. They both make the same promises. It has become very difficult to tell the differences between them until after you have paid your money (unless you want to wait several weeks for the honest reviews to come out).
The industry has fallen to the point that if you want a day one experience, you have to roll the dice. As a result, many gamers have become bitter and cynical. Every time a game takes a turn from perfection, it rips the bandaid off the cuts that developers like EA and Bethesda gave us. It reminds us of the times that we were cheated out of our money. It turns people bitchy. I can't really blame them either. It just sucks to see it happening.
The important thing to remember, is that game developers are a company. They are in it for the profit. Gaming is not a charity and although they may be passionate and driven to make gaming a better place, they still want to make shit tons of money. So if they can make over 1 billion dollars in microtransactions in a year(looking at you Overwatch), they will take that opportunity. Wouldn't you?
