Deadlines Versus "It's Ready When It's Ready" - The Best Game Release Model

[Ferbian]

When a game is being released, a release date is usually published a few months prior to release. Some game series have an annual release, much like the FIFA series, and to some extend the Call of Duty series, which lives by an essential deadline that the game has to be released distributed usually leading into Christmas times, where the marked has its biggest potential for profit.

Where as on the other hand, a company like Blizzard lives by the "It's ready when it's ready" criteria, looking back at their titles like World of Warcraft (Released in Europe in February 2005), Diablo 2 (Released in June 2000) and a multitude of their other massive selling titles. Blizzard holding the record for the fastest selling game of all time, being Diablo 3, released after Christmas, and Blizzard having beaten the record over and over again with some of their other titles that had been released after Christmas.

Essentially though Blizzard can't really compete with the Call of Duty or FIFA series, as the franchise continues to pump out games that sells massively, and thus continously raise the amount of sold copies to a level where Blizzard would possibly need to pump annually as well. However, with the "It's ready when it's ready" attitude, Blizzard has released a long list of game of the year winners, and greatest .... of all time winners, which games like Call of Duty and FIFA alike could possibly never contest with (Okay FIFA could probably say about sports games, but really who is there truly to compete with there?). Where as the annual releases and deadline influenced games could have potential lacks, or feel rushed (Need I say more than Mass Effect 3's ending?), hurting the overall product where as the money on the other hand is gonna be a guarantee, which will look great on the final quarter of finances.

Both release models have their ups and downs. But which one can really be said to be the best model? Which one would have the biggest potential gain for a longstanding company, both from an accomplishment, as well as financial standpoint?

 

[Dagger Dias]

I lean more toward the "It's ready when it's ready" theory.

If a game has a deadline set in stone, then it does make easier to plan the release and so forth, but what if it's not ready? Creating a video game is a very long and difficult process. Every single scenario the developers can possibly think of has to be tested in order to see if the game functions properly. What if they stumble upon a massive glitch or other issue along the way? If the game MUST be ready too soon, they would not have time to fix the problem and would be forced to release the game still containing the issue. Fans become upset, and it tarnishes the name of the company. It's usually not best to have a release date set in stone unless you are nearly 100% convinced that the game will be ready by then. The company should give themselves plenty of time to run all of the tests they need after the actual developing process is complete. Glitches in games are rarely a good thing, and neither is any type of rushed product.

Both theories have their flaws though. It's possible to take entirely too long to make sure a game is fully prepared for a release. More content could become inspired to be added, and not all of it can be made available as DLC. No matter how much work is poured into reaching that final development stage, it's always possible to find a reason to push the release date back even further. This is a bad trap to fall into, and some games never see the light of day due to that. Looking at YOU, Earthbound 64. (It did get a release many years later as Mother 3 on the GBA, but it was no longer the same game and it was Japanese exclusive.)

 

[Tiffy Lockhart]

My theory:

Either don't give a solid release date until the game is 90% done, or give a release date so far ahead of when you expect the game to be done that when you bring it back down, people will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Dilligaf]

As the saying goes "All good things come to those who wait"

I myself also prefer the "It's ready when it's ready" theory too.

As much as I cant wait for games to come out once they are announced, and it does piss me off sometimes when they put a game's release back several times, I would rather wait for a good complete game than a shit half-arsed rushed version.

Anyone remember that NFS:Carbon?
It had that bug acheivement inside it, Urban Battle (10G) Win 50 Free Roam Challenges in Career Mode.

And they promised once the next game was completed (Pro Street) I believe, it was going to be sorted, and it never was.

Only problem is sometimes we wait so long for a game, and its shit anyways, one example being GT5.

Then you have a rushed game with shitloads of DLC that should have been part of the original complete game, which some games developers decide to do just to rip us off.

 

[klunderbunker]

E.T.

The game was rushed into stores for the Christmas season and it is widely regarded as the worst game of all time and the reason for the video game crash of 1983. WHile that's less likely to happen today, it's ridiculous to try to rush something like that out and disappoint the people that could potentially buy more of your product in the future. Today, given the speed of which you can find a review of a game online, there is zero reason to rush a game out if it's not ready. Yes it's good to have a game out in time for Christmas, but do you really want to trade in one Christmas for years of a good reputation as a company where customers could buy multiple games from you later on? Give your developers enough time and you'll be fine.