skullomania
Member
Go! Go! Kokopolo 3D
Announced = March 2012
Release date = LOL
Announced = March 2012
Release date = LOL
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Announcing games way before they're ready
- Thread starter Kieli
- Start date
Crooked16th
Banned
EA E3 2014 is a textbook example.
LifeBrandRobot
Member
I'm into it, gives me stuff to look forward to and to know that projects are in the works.
Surprise is overrated.
Surprise is overrated.
YoRHa No.2 Type B
Banned
Only thing I hate is when they show trailer and it says "Now in development"
Yep. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have all been guilty of this in recent years.
Son Of Sparda
Member
It depends on the game really.
Like, when it comes to next DMC I want them announce it as soon as it gets greenlight cause the future of the series is not clear and we've been waiting for an OG DMC game for almost a decade.
But the next FF? Nah, Square-Enix can take their time with that.
Like, when it comes to next DMC I want them announce it as soon as it gets greenlight cause the future of the series is not clear and we've been waiting for an OG DMC game for almost a decade.
But the next FF? Nah, Square-Enix can take their time with that.
More_Badass
Member
Better than giving you an uncertain date just to make you happy that there's a date. That's the same thing with Kickstarter: you need to give a rough release period at a time when the game is likely still in alpha, you dont have any stretch goals and havent received funds, and so on.
It's like asking a writer what month his book is arriving on shelves when he's still working on the first chapter draft.
Anytime a company just shows a CG trailer at E3 without any demo of the game on the show floor, I just write off that trailer as a waste of time. No need to even give it a second thought.
If you're going to show a game at E3, it should be out by the following E3. If the game needs a delay, but that should be the plan during the reveal.
Crackdown 3's CG trailer was shown in E3 2014 and it still won't be out by E3 2017. That's ridiculous.
If you're going to show a game at E3, it should be out by the following E3. If the game needs a delay, but that should be the plan during the reveal.
Crackdown 3's CG trailer was shown in E3 2014 and it still won't be out by E3 2017. That's ridiculous.
Triggerhappytel
Member
They have been really bad at this lately, and it's my biggest gripe with them as a publisher. The trouble is that once a publisher starts down this path they either need to have one E3 that's light on new reveals or just keep going. It's worked do well for Sony recently that I don't see them reigning it in.
Naked Lunch
Member
A lot of people went wild over the FF7R and Shenmue III reveal - but all the logical ones knew we wouldnt see the games for 4 or 5 years later at the earliest. Ridiculous.
YoRHa No.2 Type B
Banned
I know. I still hate it though.
The Lamonster
Member
I feel like the common thread with games being announced too early is Japanese development, if anything.
SprachBrooks
Member
Sony E3 2015 is too.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
There's nothing wrong with announcing games early, as long as you're honest about the timeframe. Movie studios have no problem announcing series half a decade in advance.
Game companies just try to have their cake and eat it too. They want the hype and preorders from the reveal, without the sobering reality that the game is coming in 4 years.
There's a reason that Star Citizen keeps getting funding despite taking forever to come out. Transparency is big thing that's really lacking in a lot of this industry.
Game companies just try to have their cake and eat it too. They want the hype and preorders from the reveal, without the sobering reality that the game is coming in 4 years.
There's a reason that Star Citizen keeps getting funding despite taking forever to come out. Transparency is big thing that's really lacking in a lot of this industry.
CharminUltra
Member
One of the reasons I ignore anything S-E or Death Stranding related. Fuck 'em.
TheOfficeMut
Unconfirmed Member
The way I see it:
Games take a long time to develop
Corporations have to answer to shareholders
Therefore projects must continuously be announced, whether they're close or far out
This has the adverse effect of announcing things years in advance and running the risk of them being canceled
Thus is one of the major issues with game development
Games take a long time to develop
Corporations have to answer to shareholders
Therefore projects must continuously be announced, whether they're close or far out
This has the adverse effect of announcing things years in advance and running the risk of them being canceled
Thus is one of the major issues with game development
YoRHa No.2 Type B
Banned
I find it good how Red Dead Redemption 2 handled announcement/trailer/release date.
Because by doing this, they "win" E3s, online votes and create hype.
Did people cared that Sony showed trailers of a game that was nearly 10 years in development and nearly cancelled with no date (The Last Guardian), a remake of a game that was barely starting production (Final Fantasy VII) and a Kickstarter (Shenmue 3), on the same presentation?
Nope. Because they "won" E3. Sony really loves gamers. Cue people crying gifs and hunreds of OMG posts.
So people not only expect more like that, but demand it too. And on an era of YouTube and Twitch reactions were people get paid for screaming while watching said trailers, they will continue to. reveal games this way.
Did people cared that Sony showed trailers of a game that was nearly 10 years in development and nearly cancelled with no date (The Last Guardian), a remake of a game that was barely starting production (Final Fantasy VII) and a Kickstarter (Shenmue 3), on the same presentation?
Nope. Because they "won" E3. Sony really loves gamers. Cue people crying gifs and hunreds of OMG posts.
So people not only expect more like that, but demand it too. And on an era of YouTube and Twitch reactions were people get paid for screaming while watching said trailers, they will continue to. reveal games this way.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
A year out or sooner is the best time to announce. Stat padding your trade show with some shit that just got greenlit 2 months ago is ridiculous.
- DNF
- Any R* game
- CyberPunk 2077, even when CGI was intended more as recruiting tool than game marketing
- FF7 Remake most likely will take long time for even 1st episode to be released. Most Final Fantasy games in general, Squeenix apparently has infinite time and budget for them.
More_Badass
Member
FF and Shenmue, I might be iffy on
But the whole point of The Last Guardian was to show it was still alive and coming out. Is that a problem now too?
You clearly misinterpreted the thread. You're describing deceptive marketing, not early announcements. That's a separate issue all it's own that has had discussions year after year, most recently with NMS.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
Thousand year dev cycles for FF. Can't get a Sleeping Dogs 2 though.
The3DGameArtist
Member
Certain game projects sometimes needs to annouce or at least tease something to be able to recruit properly. There aren't endless amounts of game developers. Some studios make very specific games, which require specific talent and it can be really hard to hire unless you make sure you get applications from a very specific group of people.
Otherwise you end up with shit-ton of generic applications.
Sometimes , this is the reason ^^
Not that is a problem. But goes to show that when you take the hype out of said trailers, they're not as great. They could've said that game was in active development and coming without a trailer and even outside of E3, the multiple times they were asked about it. But like the other trailers, it seems to be the result of things they cooked up a few months before, just for E3.
And is why they continue doing so. Hype generates clicks, interest, hashtags, people talking and all that translates into money.
decoyplatypus
Member
Hardware manufacturers want to tease far-off games to persuade people to buy their platform. Publishers want to start the hype cycle because each person retweeting a trailer or hassling reporters to write more about upcoming game X is helping their marketing campaign. Software developers want to show what they're working on, in some cases for recruiting purposes.
It can be annoying when these games are 3+ years away. But then, people also get annoyed when a developer won't confirm that a sequel to beloved game X is in development.
The circumstance I worry about is when a game is not merely announced but details are shared before design and development have progressed far enough to ensure those details will feature in the final game. Even if consumers should be a little wiser about such things, it's a recipe for hard feelings.
It can be annoying when these games are 3+ years away. But then, people also get annoyed when a developer won't confirm that a sequel to beloved game X is in development.
The circumstance I worry about is when a game is not merely announced but details are shared before design and development have progressed far enough to ensure those details will feature in the final game. Even if consumers should be a little wiser about such things, it's a recipe for hard feelings.
More_Badass
Member
So basically because of hype, it's bad? I'm not seeing where the negative part is.
It seems like the point of contention here is that a game was announced with a trailer on-stage instead of like press release or something
Yes, something like E3 is prepared ahead of time. Just like Super Bowl tv spots and Comic Con conferences
It's really not rocket science. It's mostly marketing and making shareholders happy. Silver lining: maybe showing games early gives devs a chance to get feedback from the community that leads to better games. Don't always be so cynical!
Also, just because games are announced doesn't mean you have to read every article or watch every video that gets posted. Sometimes it's better to not burn out on this stuff before you ever play it.
Also, just because games are announced doesn't mean you have to read every article or watch every video that gets posted. Sometimes it's better to not burn out on this stuff before you ever play it.
HeisenbergWW62
Banned
I don't have much of a problem with it. I'd rather know something exists a few years out than spend that whole time wondering if it will ever happen. There's enough good games releasing to keep me busy
I don't really see the problem in just announcing a project assuming the publisher is commited to finishing an officially announced project and assuming they have at least some kind of idea of what they are doing instead of announcing a project that hasn't had anything nailed down yet conceptually except perhaps a genre. I mean, we know Marvel's MCU plans for how many years into the future? And movie fans are (mostly) happy about knowing the general outline of the projects Marvel has under production. Imagine Marvel didn't do that. We'd probably have a lot of people whining about them refusing to do movies with black or female leads. Now we know at least a couple of those are coming so even though we could argue they could do more or do them earlier, at least the arguments come from an informed place and not just whining because we don't know anything about their plans past the next two or three movies.
This is especially not a problem with franchises. Yeah, something like Kingdom Hearts III was announced quite early into its development, but we pretty much knew it had entered production anyway so where's the harm in having had SQEX announce it? I don't think the alternative of SQEX waiting until, like, E3 2017 to announce it would have been better just because some people have the (im)patience of a 5 year old, feels far nicer to know it's in development and have at least the occasional tidbit of information & some footage here and there vs. them just acting completely like it doesn't exist and acting coy about it when questioned.
Besides, we are drowning in games so it's not that hard to just focus on what we have now and games that are close enough to release/being finished to get more frequent promotion instead of constantly needing an update on upcoming projects that are still a year or more from release. The whole "out of sight, out of mind" thing applies to these long overdue games. Just stop obsessing about announced-but-not-yet-released games that aren't yet ready to get the spotlight and the wait isn't all that hard.
There are some exceptions (i.e. FFVsXIII simply shouldn't have been announced in 2006, neither should Ubisoft have teased Beyond Good & Evil 2 so early and then kept the project to such uncertainty all these years, dragging fans into years of annoying & frustrating "will they, won't they" pattern, wondering if the game is even being worked on too actively or at all), but those are such extreme cases that it doesn't apply to most other projects.
This is especially not a problem with franchises. Yeah, something like Kingdom Hearts III was announced quite early into its development, but we pretty much knew it had entered production anyway so where's the harm in having had SQEX announce it? I don't think the alternative of SQEX waiting until, like, E3 2017 to announce it would have been better just because some people have the (im)patience of a 5 year old, feels far nicer to know it's in development and have at least the occasional tidbit of information & some footage here and there vs. them just acting completely like it doesn't exist and acting coy about it when questioned.
Besides, we are drowning in games so it's not that hard to just focus on what we have now and games that are close enough to release/being finished to get more frequent promotion instead of constantly needing an update on upcoming projects that are still a year or more from release. The whole "out of sight, out of mind" thing applies to these long overdue games. Just stop obsessing about announced-but-not-yet-released games that aren't yet ready to get the spotlight and the wait isn't all that hard.
There are some exceptions (i.e. FFVsXIII simply shouldn't have been announced in 2006, neither should Ubisoft have teased Beyond Good & Evil 2 so early and then kept the project to such uncertainty all these years, dragging fans into years of annoying & frustrating "will they, won't they" pattern, wondering if the game is even being worked on too actively or at all), but those are such extreme cases that it doesn't apply to most other projects.
Not sure how Sony is any worse than any other big publisher out there.
I'm talking around the idea of why it is done, not why it shouldn't be done or it been bad.
This early reveals are mostly done to generate hype. Some to gauge interest, others to please investors, others by PR and so on.
Is the main question posed by the OP. Why do they continue doing it? To generate hype, win E3s and so on.
Is just for that moment. That moment people won't care if its years away, just that it was revealed.
Aeternus Malum
Member
Nobody wants to get excited for something a long way off only to see it eventually cancelled.
Maybe that doesn't matter to you but I think it's bad for fans and the developer/publisher.
I've never really had issues with this.
Game announcements are what they are and no more. I have no issues with games being announced two or three years in advance. Maybe different people just see announcements very differently to each other but I genuinely have no issues when it happens.
Game announcements are what they are and no more. I have no issues with games being announced two or three years in advance. Maybe different people just see announcements very differently to each other but I genuinely have no issues when it happens.
SQEX doesn't have an infinite budget for FF, but they can be pretty efficient in controlling the budget/costs of development for their games so even if they are seemingly in production for a long time, that doesn't necessarily mean all of that was done with a team of 2000 people throughout the 4+ year development cycles and that they cost more to develop than GTAV, SWTOR and Deadpool combined.
I hate waiting on games, it makes me feel like I'm such a nerd (which I am obviously).
Also agreed with above, don't show up on stage if you have nothing but CGI/intentions.
I would love the industry to follow Apple example on this.
Announce something then releasing it a few weeks after would be awesome.
3 to 4 weeks of super hype, that's all I need.
Also agreed with above, don't show up on stage if you have nothing but CGI/intentions.
I would love the industry to follow Apple example on this.
Announce something then releasing it a few weeks after would be awesome.
3 to 4 weeks of super hype, that's all I need.
darkistheway
Member
I dont care when they announce games. You don't have to buy into the hype cycle, you know?
I'll never get why this is a bad thing. You're going to wait for the next game from dev X the same amount of time whether it was announced announced 1 or 10 years before release. I personally prefer knowing what the devs I like are working on instead of being dead silent for years.
More_Badass
Member
But why is that a bad thing? You would prefer if they only announced the game this year?
Announced in September of 2012. Still no release date (though I'm pretty certain it will finally launch this year). And even now, information regarding gameplay or features is fairly scarce. The most recent dev blog, for example, came out last July.
Unless there are signs of dev hell issues, the fact that a game is taking years to make should be praised. Especially big complex games like M&B and Tides of Numenera. We should want those games to take years to come out, because their scale and scope deserve that much time to be done well