BY PHANTOM: Many of the releases this generation come with huge day one patches. This means even once the game goes gold and is put to print, the developers still continue to make changes and, hopefully, improvements. These can take place right up to the shipping date and then continue on for months after. Sometimes, games still experience updates for more than a year after launch.
This brings me to my somewhat disappointing realisation: I may have to stop playing launch day games.
Source: N4G PC Patient Gamer: Is It Time to Actually Become One?