Poll: Gamers' Attitude on Delays.

[SacremPyrobolum]

It used to be that delays would cause gamers to rage nearly as much as DLCs do today. But now gamers, myself included, seem to see delays as positive thing that allow the developers to make game that run well.

In my opinion, the top priority of all game manufactures (especially PC) should be to craft a stable game.

It doesn't matter if you have the best gameplay and most awsomesauce graphics if your game crashes every 5 minutes.

I think this change came about because of recent awesome games(Fallout 3-NV, Empire TW) were let down and cheapened by the amount of bugs and crashes present in release day.

Do you agree with this? Has your attitude on delays changed?

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Escapist must be feasting on my thread poll.

 

[jonasbgehr]

no, but i never really had a problem with delays

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

no, but i never really had a problem with delays

So what do you think is more important than stability? (assuming that by no you meant that stability is not the most important thing.)

 

[Nazgual]

Escapist must be feasting on my thread poll.

Aww lol. Yes I do think that (most of the time) a delay is probably for the better. Although I would probably be more appreciative to companies if they were a bit more forward about it like Valve.

 

[Sixcess]

I think it depends on how far in advance they start hyping the game. I'll give two examples, both from Bioware.

Mass Effect 3: Originally scheduled for the end of this year (Nov-Dec I think was the original expected date) but now pushed back to March next year. Since all we've had so far has been one announcement trailer, some screenshots and a couple of short gameplay vids - I have no problem with that.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: 3 years worth of CGI trailers, class announcement vids, gameplay vids, story and background vids, mission walkthroughs, beta footage... and finally, after an interminable run of "EA/Bioware say they've no idea when this is coming out" stories they announce a launch date, and it's still another 3 months away.

Okay, MMOs have long development cycles, but in this day and age so do AAA single player games, and after 3 years of this bloody thing being a weekly fixture on dedicated MMO news sites I'm just totally fatigued with it. I just want it to be out and over and done with. Strictly speaking it's not been delayed, but it feels like it has because every time you felt like they were building up to THE big announcement they'd do another "actually, we've no idea when this is coming out" interview.

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

Ideally, a game should almost be finished when announced, making it possible to set a fairly close release date to cash in on the hype and using the time between announcement and release to basically just playtest.

It can't be good bussiness practice to announce a game, show some cinematic trailer and then let it die for a year, before relase gets close. Better to work on it in secret, and then keep a pretty high profile with gameplay trailers, interview etc when you are practically done.

Not like Valve who goes "Oh yeah, we're totally working on this game, to be released by christmas. And by working, we mean we're thinking about starting working on the concept art, but we're not sure, and by christmas we mean christmas 2045."

 

[DEAD34345]

Well yes, games should always be stable, that's kind of a given (or at least it should be). However, developers shouldn't have to delay their game to make it stable, they really should have took that time into account in the first place and made the game playable in time for the release date they chose.

Don't get me wrong, delays aren't the worse thing in the world, but they're certainly not a good thing either.

 

[Wolfhowl the shadow lurker]

i think dead island has shown us that some games should be delayed

 

[Rainbowloid]

I find delays to be incredibly frustrating. When a game keeps getting pushed back again and again it makes me want to rage. But deep down, I know that they're using the extra time to make the game better, which is what really matters in the end. A great game is worth the long wait. A shitty game, on the other hand...

 

[Rawne1980]

Depends on the game.

I only class a delay as when they announce a release date and then move it back. Some people class a delay as when they hear about a game and it doesn't get released until the company think it's ready.

SW:ToR hasn't been delayed. They only announced it's release date recently therefore how can it have been delayed when we've only just been given a date?

Duke Nukem Forever ..... now that was a delay.

Was it worth the wait? Not for me.

Batman has been delayed on the PC for another month. I was aiming at buying it but they decided to release it the same month as Skyrim and I want that more so, alas, Batman is off my to buy list.

It all depends on the game, if i've been waiting for it and how long they move it back. Also depends on if they move it back to a month that coincides with another game i've been waiting for.

 

[2xDouble]

It depends.

Too often companies make promises they realize later they can't keep. They can either hold the promise as a hard limit and end up with shitty product (Final Fantasy XIV, anybody?), or they can push it back and admit to lying to their consumers and risk losing the property in "development hell". Worse than that, breaking that promise of a release date puts a great deal of pressure on developers to rush the product in an attempt to atone, still winding up with subpar craftsmanship (Duke Nukem Forever, oddly enough). These are delays.

On the other hand, sometimes details beyond the control and scope of the developers pushes back the plausible release of a game. Network infrastructure taking too long to build, marketing and distribution problems, production and supply limitations (such as the PS3, remember?)... etc.. These are much more tolerable. They don't typically impact the game's quality, and are beyond anyone's control, so the devs aren't really breaking that promise. They were ready, everyone else wasn't. These are simple setbacks, and as I said are far less infuriating.

Some companies take the outwardly flippant, but ultimately better for everyone when done correctly, attitude of releasing "when it's done". No promises are made, so none can be broken. Nobody feels betrayed when problems arise, and the devs don't have the pressure to rush their product, so they can take the time to address problems properly. Unfortunately, this carries the risk of devs losing sight of their goal, or losing focus altogether and not actually releasing a product, having wasted everyone's time. Only serious developers with major financial backers can afford to take this kind of risk.

[/speech]

 

[Smooth Operator]

It may changed on this site but not generally, the average gamer is a casual consumer and if he could get a new CoD on a monthly basis it still wouldn't be enough... that's just the sad truth of things.

But as long as some people are educated on proper development I'll be happy

 

[jonasbgehr]

no, but i never really had a problem with delays

So what do you think is more important than stability? (assuming that by no you meant that stability is not the most important thing.)

no i never had problems with games getting delayed

 

[krazykidd]

I think that games should not be released until the developpers and publishers are 100% happy with their game . Blizzard excels at this . If a game does not meet their incredibly high standards they delay or downright cancel it . Like starcraft ghost.

 

[wetfart]

Since I rarely purchase on launch day, delays don't bother me. I usually wait for the price to drop which means I can generally afford them easier and I find that games are more fun the cheaper I get them.

 

[Yvl9921]

A delay means something isn't going right. And unless it's Blizzard, it's NEVER enough time in the end. And the game will usually suffer greatly for it.

But not as much as releasing a game early, which means the project was underambitious, and was probably flawed from the beginning.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Gamers only like delays in hindsight, after a game has already been released and has left them wanting.