Wait for it… wait for it………
Delayed.
That single word has the power to make any gamer shudder - and subsequently light up message boards all across the internet. “OH NOES TEH GAME ISNT COMEING OUT ON TIME WTF AM I GUNNA DO NOW?!?!?!” It’s a sad sight, to be sure, but unfortunately, delayed releases are becoming more and more prevalent in today’s gaming world.
What seems to cause all of this mass-procrastination anyway? It’s hard to find answers among the gaming community. And with the latest reports that Bionic Commando Rearmed for XBL and PSN and Saint’s Row 2 are both going to be late to their respective parties, it’s hard for gamers to keep track of when to spend their hard-earned cash (or pseudo-cash, in the case of Microsoft Points).
In addition to the recent string of game delays, it’s difficult for consumers to keep track of releases even when they know a game is coming out. Working in the retail industry, I know that when I am in on Tuesday, there will be new movies and CDs on the shelves. But games? There are very few occasions when games are shipped to a store prior to release and held for a street date, something that is done nearly all of the time with movies and music. Instead, publishers use Tuesdays as a “ship” date, meaning that the product will arrive in stores at least one day later, sometimes not for two or three days. A definite New Release Day model for the gaming industry would certainly ease the minds of consumers and help add a little consistency to our hobby. It doesn’t even have to be Tuesday - let the masses spend all of their money on the new movies one day, then come back for the games the next. That way everyone wins - gamers, publishers, and retailers.
Okay, enough of my thoughts. What do you have to say? Any ideas on the delays or new releases?
June 4th, 2008 at 11:42 am
To me, the whole issue of delays is basically a growing pain of the gaming industry. In its childhood, the industry was small enough that no one needed to make any kind of commitments regarding release dates - people simply released games when they were done developing them.
In its adulthood, when the industry matures, we will be more like the movie industry - we will set release dates, do it at the right point in time in the development life cycle, and therefore actually be able to meet them most of the time.
Right, now, unfortunately, we are in the painful teenage years - we deem ourself mainstream enough to set deadlines, but don’t yet have the execution experience to not put our foot in our mouth and consistently meet these deadlines without grossly compromising quality.
It’s really a factor of two key things: 1) truly appreciating the task at hand, i.e. the complexity of developing a game from start to finish, how long it really takes, the implication of having to do incremental re-design, re-building, and re-testing. 2) Figuring out the right time in the process at which to make the commitment to a release date. Whenever you see a game delayed, more often than not that means the marketing department jumped the gun and released a date too early, before most of the development and testing hurdles were well-understood. Figuring out the right time to set a release date is a matter of experience, and is different for every industry. We in the gaming industry are still learning.