Waiting For A Delayed Video Game

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Original Article: “A delayed video game can eventually be good, but a rushed game is forever bad”,

This is a famous phrase commonly attributed to (but not actually said by) Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto. Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom had been anticipated for years, being announced five years ago and being delayed multiple times.

While many fans have referred back to said quote during this time, others question how much this truly applies to modern gaming, when a big-budget title can take up to five years to release after its announcement.

Why Delay a Game

The idea of delaying a game until it’s at its best is a logical one. Making video games is hard, so if developers are having problems with a title we should be patient and wait a bit longer so that it can be made better.

Many games have been ruined from release before they were ready, Sonic The Hedgehog (2006), E.T., and Devil May Cry 2 to name a few, but at the same time, in the age of the internet when it is so much easier to track how long a game was announced, and how long it in development. It’s very easy for gamers to get impatient when a game is repeatably delayed and little information is given why or even worse eventually comes out and is less than stellar.

A good example of this is Duke Nukem Forever, a game infamous for taking more than 14 years to release between its announcement in 1997 and release in 2011. Years would go by between new information on the game, with little more than the promise every now and then that it was still coming. Eventually, it came out to a mediocre reception with the title more infamous for taking forever than its actual substance.

While delays may be necessary, a game with too many delays or one that goes radio silent for years can cause a rift of distrust among fans. If something is taking a long time, it usually does bode well as it implies that there is something going wrong.

The Right Way To Delay a Game

On the other hand, there are games that people seem more than happy to wait for. The most notable of these is the ongoing wait for Metroid Prime 4, a game announced at E3 2017 with a simple logo, and nothing else has been seen since. Despite this though, fans, in general, seem to be, at the very least begrudgingly ok with waiting for Metroid Prime 4. I think that’s because Nintendo met the hefty waiting time with something rather refreshing in the video game industry: honesty.

In 2019, Nintendo released a video saying that the development of Metroid Prime 4 was not meeting their standard and that they would start it again from scratch with a new developer, or rather an old developer as the game would now be made by Retro Studio, the same people who did the first three Prime games. This helped ease the blow of the game’s delay, as gamers could understand why it is taking such a long time even if they weren’t happy about it.

What I think these examples show is the importance of a game’s announcement and release date as well as what you do in between. With most games, the problem is less that they’re being delayed but really that they were announced far too early. It is clear that the reason Metroid Prime 4 was announced with just a logo was that they literally had nothing else to show.

Likewise, many of these games get announced while they are still in the pre-development phase. Video game development plans will often change throughout their creation and as such, it’s hard to market them and keep people hyped for long periods of time.

Announce Games Later

The solution for larger companies at least has been simple: only announce games once they are near completion, and many of them have gotten good at it. Resident Evil Village, Devil May Cry V, Kirby and The Forgotten Land, and most recently Soul Hackers 2. All launched less than a year after their announcement.

This creates a more efficient and concentrated marketing campaign that allows for information about the game to be divided out at a steady pass and keep consumers’ attention for months instead of years.

Of course, some games must be announced early for business reasons, while others may still require delays even once they are near completion. That’s the nature of the unpredictable gaming industry however what these examples demonstrate is the importance of an announcement. It’s best to announce the game when there are significant things to show and the developer is sure that they can deliver the title.

If it must be delayed or postponed, developers and marketing need to think about what must be done to hold fans over as time passes. Perhaps with the honesty of why it is taking so long, or dropping the occasional trailer to ensure that, yes, it still exists. The openness of the internet makes it easy for fans to get together and question a game’s development but it can also be used to build a close relationship with fans and other their answers and more information.

A delayed video game can eventually be good, but you should also think about when is best to announce that game in the first place.

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