I am losing faith in video game delays.

[FakeSympathy]

Don't get me wrong, I don't another bf4 or ACU launch disaster. In fact, if the devs feel the need to bring us more finished product, that's great. Kudos for them.

But seriously, what is the point of a functional and optimized game if the game itself sucks? I am aware there are few games that were delayed and still ended up being good, but for every one of good delayed games, there about two bad delayed games.

Examples:
Good:Bioshock infinite
Bad: Mighty No.9, No man's Sky

Good:Witcher 3
Bad: Battlefield EA, Duke Nukem Forever

Good:Team fortress 2
Bad: Destiny, Order 1886

Even when the game looks promising, nowdays you can't get too much hopes up because the actual build will probably be different from what you saw at e3 or any other gaming convention.

 

[Saelune]

If only games would be properly planned out and released when they should be. Rushed games always suffer, but delays are usually a bad sign. People say "as long as its finished/better" but that doesnt seem to be why most delays happen.

 

[Zhukov]

You're just running into Sturgeon's Law.

There are 10 bad games for every 1 good game regardless of delays.

 

[FakeSympathy]

You're just running into Sturgeon's Law.

There are 10 bad games for every 1 good game regardless of delays.

That......makes way too much sense.

 

[runic knight]

Wonder if there is some sort of data curve we could look into comparing the length of the delay and the quality. I mean, you look at a game like Duke Nukem that was delayed how many years? At that point, it was probably never going to be good, so perhaps there is a pattern in the timetables where delay duration affects likelihood of sucking?

 

[sXeth]

Depends what caused the delay, in most cases.

Duke Nukem Forever wasn't one game being delayed so much as they rebuilt the game about six times trying to keep up with the (at the time) latest 3d tech. Then ended up switching publishers and joining the Gearbox shovelware pile where they put anything that isn't Borderlands.

No Man's Sky, (according to that brief legal dispute that arose back in June over their super-algorithm), didn't even have a functioning procedural generation system until late last year or early this year. The core spine of their game was malfunctioning for most of their development cycle and they had to build or try and make everything work after they got it fixed. Clearly they shouldn't have been talking it up as much as they did when it wasn't working in the basic level yet, but adding and debugging features to the game in 4-5 month window does kind of explain the dearth of them on a technical level.

Destiny had a dispute over direction, apparently so drastic that the lead writer, a longtime employee called it quits and somehow took his storyline with him. Destiny Vanilla and the first DLC pack (by all accounts) are just an effort to stitch something coherent out of what they already had while they tried to rewrite it. The Year 2 expansion was much more coherent effort, and back-patched vanilla to make it less garbled (though vanilla missions still suffer from the design flaws with the all too often "Defend the door hacking ghost").

There's also the inevitable clash between a delay and the hype train. These super-hyped fandoms are getting more ridiculous by the month it seems. No Mans Sky probably needed months more cooking from June, but people were sending out death threats at the two week delay that happened. Mighty No 9 had a similar saga. So did Final Fantasy 15. This certainly affects a smaller dev/new IP more, where they're more heavily tied into having to keep hold of their prospective fanbase, and more likely to push out something not ready to try and avoid delay backlash.

I've avoided any real debate over whats actually assigned as good/bad in the OP. Though I admit some curiosity. Most of those games are functional on a gameplay level, and for the most part, deliver the game-play shown. The 3 that I remember showing game-play that didn't translate are scattered around. No Mans Sky obviously, the Order certainly lacked (or more accurately, barely used) most of its interesting ideas, and the other one I remember having missing game-play elements (or again, little used) is actually on the good list with Bioshock Infinite. I admittedly haven't touched Mighty No 9 (or really had any interest in it) and have no clue which Battlefield is being designated by EA (all of them?)

 

[bluegate]

In some cases a game being delayed gets the fanboys so riled up that when the game eventually releases, they are ready to piss all over it because it made them wait a few weeks longer.

 

[stroopwafel]

Release dates are just artificial cut-offs imposed by the publisher to keep the company's shareholders happy and/or to release the game in a specific fiscal quarter. Delays don't say much other than the developers willing to go the extra mile and request more time to finish the game(we actually never know when such a request is rejected which is probably more often than it being approved). I mean, can you imagine EA pushing their Call of Duty garbage into another timeslot than november? Me neither.

 

[Supernova1138]

Release dates are just artificial cut-offs imposed by the publisher to keep the company's shareholders happy and/or to release the game in a specific fiscal quarter. Delays don't say much other than the developers willing to go the extra mile and request more time to finish the game(we actually never know when such a request is rejected which is probably more often than it being approved). I mean, can you imagine EA pushing their Call of Duty garbage into another timeslot than november? Me neither.

Odds are most of the time delays are approved are when there are good business reasons for doing so e.g Watch Dogs. Ubisoft likely allowed the 6 month delay for that game in part due to not wanting to cannibalize their own sales by releasing it at the same time as Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Considering they released Assassin's Creed Unity in the state it was in, I doubt Watch Dogs was entirely delayed due to buginess or need for more polish.

 

[SweetShark]

I thought it was just a part of the plan to built more hype for the game.
Sure, there are companies which delay a game to do an actual work, but I think the delay of No Man Sky was clearly to make the fans more eager to buy it even more people.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I'm losing faith in video games PERIOD.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The DeathWing Space Hulk game got a delay to December and I find it suspicious. Game devs are just burning gamer good will like its the Torah on Kristallnacht.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

On the spectrum of losing faith in things, this is but a dying trout's tear riding on the leaf of denial upon the stormy Mediterranean oceans. You'll be fine, it's the rest of the shit you should prepare for.