Release Dates: for or against

[D.A.Lewis]

How do you folks feel about release dates.

I myself like them when they are reasonable and gives me an idea when to start looking out for a game. I will not hold it against a developer or publisher if they feel the program needs more work and have to change the release date. Even it the date get pushed back 3, 4 or times. At least I know they are hard at it, working on the game and trying to get it right.

OTH, I know some developers feel that a release date is nothing more than a publicity stunt, and like to use the old refrain "we're done when we're done." Well that reasoning doesn't work for me at all and I feel it to be condescending. Also when I hear that line I usually wonder if they're really working on the game.

Ultimately, I just hate that area where I don't have a clue about what's going with a game I am really interested in. And really appreciate it when developers keep interested parties in the loop about when a game might come out.

[Lassr]

I like release dates although 99% time they are wrong at least it gives me a feel for approximately when they may come out. What quarter or at the minimum hopefully what year.

If I see a "when it's done" as the release date I do not stay interested in a game because I simply have no clue when I'll be able to get my hands on it and thus do not bother to keep track of it.

[killbot737]

For, as long as there's some sort of communication when there are the inevitable slips. My favorites for that recently have been Darwinia and Supreme Ruler 2010. They both communicated in one way or another when they'd go gold (and then any guess as to actual ship date is useless and out of their hands, so they didn't make any )

[Boudreaux]

I would love release dates for games if they worked like DVD/music release dates - i.e., the release date was pretty much a guarantee. Obviously that would mean that PC game release dates wouldn't be released until there was a great certainty that the game was nearly done. I really wish this was the way it worked, rather than the current "best guess" method of setting release dates. Even if release dates were set far closer to the actual date. If Half-Life 3 is released on 12/1/08, I'd much rather hear that release date on 9/1/08 than to hear a long string of successively pushed-back dates starting in early '07.

It also baffles me why PC release dates can't be coordinated like DVD and music releases. If the release date is X, I want the game in the stores on X. Not shipping on X, not "sometime the week of X". We've talked about this one before and I still have no good explanation as to why this is impossible.

[Peacedog]

If the release date is X, I want the game in the stores on X.

The people who have the faintest inkling how long it will take to do X, and the people who decide on the release date for X, are not the same. In fact, the things that go into deciding on X are often do not have bearing on the realties of how long it will take to do it.

[The Meal]

Release dates should come with "error bars" that are proportional to how far out the game is. If the game is expected to come out more than a year later, then there should be error bars on the expected release date of a quarter (3-months) in either direction. SMAC2 will be out sometime between July 2006 and December 2006.

If the game is scheduled to come out in the next 6-12 months, then I think there should be an error bar of a month in either direction. cIV will be out between October 2005 and December 2005.

If the game is scheduled to come out in the next 3-6 months, they should hopefully be able to get the month right. We'll be seeing City of Villians in October 2005.

If the release date is less then 3 months away, bring on some specific dates. If she slips a week or two, so be it -- but slips from a specific date that push a game out additional *months* mean that those specific dates were basically just placeholders in the first place. And while one needs placeholder dates to plan towards, one also needs intelligence in determining what those placeholder dates are to begin with.

Slips should be noticable within the error bars of any well scheduled project, be it game development, web page development, or hard disk drive development.

~Neal

[Defiant]

It's useful to know what quarter or month a game is going to be released in. I'm not going to buy mediocre-strategy-game-X when Civ 4 is gunna be released in two weeks.

Specific dates I can do without, particularily cause it sometimes takes 1-4 weeks before I'll see the game arrive in my local store (particularily for non-A titles).

I do think companies need to wait until they can be reasonably sure of the release date and that the game won't become vaporeware) before they announce a date. I'm OK with delays (so long as they aren't long delays that come up at the last minute - that's usually a bad sign) But release dates shouldn't be a year or more off.

[Boudreaux]

The people who have the faintest inkling how long it will take to do X, and the people who decide on the release date for X, are not the same. In fact, the things that go into deciding on X are often do not have bearing on the realties of how long it will take to do it.

I understand that, which is why I think that until the people deciding on the release date can go to the developers and say "will this release date happen" and get a resounding "Yes", then that release date should not be...well...released.

I'm not arguing that your explanation is wrong, I just don't understand how anyone thinks that's a good way to do things.

[Jow]

I used to be big on release dates. I wanted as much info as possible. Now, I'd just rather hear nothing whatsoever about a game until it's gold. If it's something I'm fiending after, knowing about it way before release just makes me impatient.

[Tareeq]

SMAC2 will be out sometime between July 2006 and December 2006.

I was strongly considering suicide earlier today. It comes with a depressive personality. Thank you ~Neal!

[Jeff V]

Unrealistic release dates beget unfinished games. I have no use for them.

[dbt1949]

There's always HPS's approach.Let the news out a few days before hand.Of course they don't really need the exposure because their main core audience is already wired in their system.
It would be tough for SMAC2 publishers to get much in the way of pre orders and promises from Wal Mart and such if they did it that way.They need to know ahead of time the interest in the game to know how much to put in the game (both funding and programming wise).

[The Meal]

SMAC2 will be out sometime between July 2006 and December 2006.

I was strongly considering suicide earlier today. It comes with a depressive personality. Thank you ~Neal!

SMAC the First is still lots of fun. And if you can get it to install to XP, there's a place for you in Multiplayer Gaming...

~Neral the feral Neal

[Greggy_D]

I like them in general. Although I do remember pre-ordering Team Fortress 2 back in MAY, 1999!!!!!!! After 3 years of basically nothing, EB cancelled all TF2 pre-orders.

Back then (1999-2000) games that slipped used to piss me off. Gaming was my main hobby and I was single with no kids. Today, it's a different story. Game release dates come and go and fly by me like nobody's business. Delays don't bother me and it's rare that I even pre-order, unless it's a AAAAA title (once or twice a year). 20 bucks is my new price point and most games usually hit that after 6 months or so. I've also become addicted to Malaysian English version games off of Ebay for cheap. They're fully legal versions and work just like their US counterparts.

[D.A.Lewis]

Can anybody fill in the blanks?

When you are (A=BLANK) months away from completion, that means you still have to do (B=WHAT) inorder to go to gold.


.......A ............B
1)..12.............?
2)...6..............?
3)...3..............?
4)...1..............?


dont answer this, I'm going to make it a thread.

[Kraken]

I don't pay any attention to release dates. I only buy a couple of games a year, usually old ones. For those rare must-have games like Civ4, just knowing "this Xmas" is good enough for me.