Every single game in the history of video games loses money...
I will go as far as saying every single product loses money...
in the R&D phase...
We all know the game wasn't ready... ALL of these big companies take forever to release the big ones... How long has SWTOR been in development? guild wars II?

When a game is in development it is not making money... but it is costing money...
that is, in essence, what development is. SE always takes a long time to release games... they just pushed this one out too soon... but that doesn't actually cost them any extra money... Had they waited and this game still wasn't released, financially they would be in the same position... the same position they've been in on every game they've ever made

The only negative to come out of this was the stock price fell due to bad publicity causing some very angry shareholders

When they say the lost money, what they are saying is "They didn't make as much money as the were projected to make this year" because the predictions were based on a finished game.

But again... had they delayed the release, they would be in the same financial position, just with a better stock price...

What they are doing now is no different than a delayed release.. just with some extra negative buzz to go with it...
Saying there is a time frame that the game has to be finished is silly...
Every game has that deadline push...
Look at this as just another SE game release delay... because thats all it is... and lets be honest.. SE delays everything so this isn't new territory for them

tl;dr SE isn't losing any more money on this game than they have on every other game they've released