I've never worked in the games industry, but it's my understanding (from the sidelines, reading about EA Spouse and all that) that games company execs decide on a release date and then throw everything they've got at it to make it happen (long work hours, working weekends, etc.).

And given how often games get delayed (Unreal, Team Fortress, Duke Nukem etc.) it seems they're not very good at predicting software delivery dates either.

I'm not stating that software developers shouldn't estimate at all - sometimes considering the angles helps you design it better - just that estimation in pursuit of nailing down a delivery date weeks/months in advance is a bad idea.

We all know the quote that adding extra developers to a late project make it even later. So if you have a market-imposed deadline you've got to get the number of developers correct from the beginning of the project. Hard to do without that much estimation.