The Real Reason Behind Game Delays

Conventional wisdom and public relations suggest that "quality control" is the chief reason for game delays. That's only partly right -- in fact, strategy plays a bigger role than you would ever suspect.

Game development, like any software development, is an immensely intricate process. Given its temperamental nature, delays are inevitable -- it just comes with the territory. Sometimes, game developers delay a game's release in order to enhance the gameplay or polish the presentation, frustrating original release dates in the process.

"Typically, development teams delay games because they want to add an extra feature or spend more time on a specific aspect to get it just right," says Dave Karraker, senior director of communications at Sony Computer Entertainment of America. "You need to remember that at the end of the day, the developer is truly an artist and their name is on that final product," Karraker continues. "They will take every opportunity to get just a little more time to make the game as great as it possibly can be."

But even though quality is a major reason for game delays, it's far from the only reason. "Delays occur for both strategic and quality reasons," says analyst Michael Pachter. Contrary to what you may think, publishers are just as as likely to delay a game for strategic reasons as they are quality ones.

Conventional wisdom is wrong: game delays are directly tied to strategic reasons

Zelda:Twilight Princess was strategically delayed for a whole year so Nintendo could get more bang for its buck. Granted, the game likely didn't sit gathering dust on Redmond shelves during those 12 months, but the GameCube game was receiving "finishing touches" in September of 2005 two months before its expected November 2005 release. Let's re-examine its delay.

The fourteenth iteration of the long-lived Zelda series was first shown in May of 2004 to much acclaim at E3. A year passed before Nintendo dubbed it "Twilight Princess" and produced a fully playable demo for E3 2005. At that point, Twilight Princess was planned for a November 2005 release -- just six months later. Then, on August 16, 2005, Nintendo officially delayed the game so developers could add "new levels [and] more depth." In actuality, Twilight princess wouldn't arrive on the GameCube for another 16 months. That's a lot of "finishing touches."

Delays occur for both strategic and quality reasons....Publishers don't want to be held to a hard date since they are universally criticized for a delay."
--analyst Michael Pachter

The full story wouldn't be revealed until after Twilight Princess director Eiji Aonuma spoke during the 2007 Game Developers Conference. Aonuma stated that the once GameCube-only game was virtually complete before Miyamoto and Nintendo higher-ups decided in September 2005 to port the title to Wii in addition to the 'Cube. So for an entire year, Nintendo danced around the rumors, never clear on when it would actually release the game, while developing the new Wii version. To this day, and despite Aonuma's recent account, Nintendo maintains that the delay was solely a quality issue, citing the age-old "committed to quality" line.

Few dispute that Nintendo is committed to quality when considering the company's large number of high-caliber games. But Nintendo is also committed to turning a profit, so strategic timing is only logical. Furthermore, does anyone deny the sound business logic behind delaying Twilight Princess so Nintendo could move more Wiis at launch?


Continued on page two

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment