Ubisoft isn’t afraid to delay a game if it thinks it can be better. Following delays for several of Ubisoft’s major titles in both 2012 and 2013, North American president Laurent Detoc explained to IGN the thought process behind pushing games, and how it fits into the company's long-term strategy.

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“ Watch Dogs could have ended up being the best-rated game on next gen if it came out at launch.

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“ One of the fascinating things about this industry is that you can go from genius to idiot in an extremely short time frame.

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“ It’s not a perfect science. It’s not just software. It’s art.

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“It’s a very intense decision,” Detoc told IGN. “I think one of the fascinating things about this industry is that you can go from genius to idiot in an extremely short time frame. These are some of those moments, where you’re riding sky high on Watch Dogs Detoc explained that the scope of these delays varies greatly, from a few months of polish for Far Cry 3 to a massive, multi-year reworking of a game like Splinter Cell: Conviction. In the case of this year’s highest-profile delay, Watch Dogs, Detoc says while it came as a shock to fans, some people at Ubisoft were equally surprised.“I’ll tell you, at Gamescom, everybody was looking each other in the eye thinking we would be there at launch,” Detoc said regarding Watch Dogs, which was originally scheduled to be ready for the launch of next-gen consoles but has now been pushed to 2014 . “There were already some lingering doubts, but we were plowing through it. There were more than a thousand people touching that game. Then eventually, a month later, we said, ‘this is not gonna fly.’ Then it takes a few more weeks to decide how we’re going to package that news for everyone. It’s not just about delaying for the sake of delaying it. No matter how hard we try, we also put out games that are not good quality, unfortunately. It’s not because we go out and say, ‘great, let’s make a piece of junk and put it out there.’ It’s really painful to us. But some games, you just can’t make them that much better because of how they’ve been progressing. Part of the decision to delay Watch Dogs is also that. We know it’s not where we want it to be. Can it get there? What will it take to get there? That’s why it takes a longer process. But in August we really thought we were going to have that game at launch.”“I actually believe that Watch Dogs could have ended up being the best-rated game on next gen if it came out at launch. We wanted it to be even higher,” Detoc told us. “The whole package is there already. But without sending them too many flowers, the guys at Rockstar have showed us again that if you make a 96-percent game, people will come. Watch Dogs, I can only hope we get to that level. There’s an attachment to the brand, in the case of GTA, that makes people really want to give it that 100-percent review. We’ll be missing that on Watch Dogs until we go further, potentially. That’s what we’re after.”Detoc knows that South Park: The Stick of Truth, another high-profile delay this year, could have been a huge seller this Christmas, but it was in the best interest for the game – and, ultimately, for consumers – to push it to next year “It’s a huge brand. It’s interesting, because the South Park guys are extremely demanding. They’re very professional. They want the best for their brand. We get along with each other fairly well because we’re quite receptive to their requests. If we get to this level of quality, it’s going to be a bigger success,” he explained. “Their season ends at the beginning of December. We were all trying to lock this in. We looked at the game and we said, ‘we need to delay this.’ It was sort of preaching to the choir, because we knew they also wanted what was best for the product. But it was an easy decision, because we wanted to make a better product. It was not a good commercial decision at the time, because you’re going to miss those December sales. 18 months from now? I think we’ll make that up.”South Park was a rare case for Ubisoft, who traditionally deals with its dozens of internal studios, to publish a game created by a third party. It’s also a unique situation since the license was purchased from THQ when the former publisher was dissolved in January.Following a delay, Detoc told us, the hard part is deciding when to re-reveal a title that’s been pushed. We asked when the public might get its next chance to see Watch Dogs, and Detoc had a simple answer: “When we have something good to show again.” He believes that there’s no simple formula for timing something like that, explaining that building games is “not a perfect science. It’s not just software. It’s art. There’s a lot of judgment and perception that comes into this. It’s extremely complicated, with a lot of moving parts. Especially with a game like Watch Dogs. We’re breaking ground on a number of different gameplay assets. We’re in uncharted territory.”“We tend to favor what the people who make the games want to do in this company. Not every company behaves that way,” he said. “But yes, sometimes you delay a game and you hope it’s going to get better, and you make the wrong decision, because you still can’t fit a square peg in a round hole. You would have been better off just shipping as opposed to continuing to invest. We tend to be guilty of continuing to invest, probably, more often than others, because that’s sort of the promise of people who work at Ubisoft. We give a lot of creative freedom. That’s why we put out so many new brands, by the way.”“Could we make more money if we did it another way? Maybe. There’s a long term and short term mentality that comes into play here. Ubisoft is very much focused on the long term. That’s why quality is important. It’s why I talk about brands the way I did earlier. It’s why we built all these studios,” he continued. “We have this motto inside the company: we want games to enrich people’s lives. Starting from there, you give a lot of creative freedom to anybody and everybody who wants to do some game that can go along with that. Then you start Rocksmith. You say, ‘yeah, we’ll get people to learn real-world skills. We’ll enrich their lives.’ When you make a game like Assassin’s Creed, you say, ‘how crazy can we go? We’ll have a guy who travels through time and do an insane amount of research on every period of history.’ There’s a lot of history that goes into these games. We’re not just sending a guy with a sword after another guy with a sword. I don’t like to use the word much, because I think some people disagree, but there’s a real art that goes into making these products. Do we give too much freedom for our own good? Maybe. But I think that so long as we continue to be in business and make enough money, it’s a good thing.”Still, Ubisoft is a business, and while it tries to give as much freedom as possible to the teams making games, finding a way to make a profit is still obviously a major factor, especially since there are investors to please. Detoc believes that need to have a profitable business can still be balanced with the desire for creators to express themselves artistically.“This is a testament to Yves Guillemot. It’s his vision, his company. This is a place where people feel comfortable working,” Detoc said. “They feel they’re respected. It translates into how people make these games as well. They know we respect their opinions. We try to help them so they don’t make products that don’t sell, but we really favor creativity, as opposed to having people say, 'what game do you want me to make?' We’ve talked about the products themselves, but this is something that you find throughout the company in general.”Look out for more from Detoc later this week, and be sure to read his earlier comments about what's going on with Rainbow 6: Patriots

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.