The Real Reason Behind Game Delays (page 2 of 2)

Why do game makers muddy the waters when dealing with delays?

With the exception of Sony, the vast majority of publishers either declined or failed to fully respond to GamePro's request for statement on the issue. Nintendo partially participated. Microsoft, Capcom, Activision, and Midway declined comment outright, leaving 10 more publishers that didn't respond for whatever reason. So it would seem that game makers don't want to address this issue or engage in its discussion. Perhaps publishers feel that gamers don't appreciate the importance of strategy when it comes to maximizing revenue on a game release.

But it's not just Nintendo that handles game delays poorly. Unclear and indefinite delay schedules seem to be the norm. Unlike movie studios and book publishers, game makers string along their audience more often than not. And when delays do happen, they rarely unveil a new, firm release date, leaving gamers to stew and speculate.

"Publishers don't want to be held to a hard date since they are universally criticized for a delay," says analyst Michael Pachter. But the issue isn't that game delays happen; it's in how publishers handle the delays. Granted, publishers may fear that disclosing a lengthy delay will equate to lower sales due to once-prospective, now-frustrated customers. But if companies fully disclosed tentative delays with a newly expected schedule early on, this problem could be minimized.

At the end of the day, the developer is truly an artist and their name is on that final product."
--Dave Karakker, senior director of communications at SCEA

Equally unnerving is the absence of any formal policies for tracking or managing game delays, a significant shortcoming in our 14 billion dollar industry. "Game release dates are always targets, so we don't have an official customer service policy around any delays," says Sony's Karraker, noting that release dates accountability was not something his company publicly tracks. But companies would be wise to implement a system when publically dealing with delays, however trivial it may seem. Being forthright with prolonged release dates, avoiding cliche cop-outs, and disclosing the number of delayed titles would only foster more trust and loyalty with gamers. That is sure to translate into more game sales.

Clearing the air

Hopefully, gamers aren't losing sleep when their favorite game (::cough::Half-Life Episode 2 ::cough::) is delayed. But that doesn't mean game makers can't do a better job in mitigating and dealing with delays. In both cases, transparency is the best policy.

So what's holding back improvement? Wouldn't sound project management get the job done? Turns out it's not that easy. "It would be easy to say that more up-front planning would help [improve game delays], but many times you simply run into unforeseen problems or you start going down a development path that is so good, you want to build it out even more," concludes Sony's Karraker. "You will never be able to totally eliminate delays in game launches," he adds, "but as developers become more familiar with the abilities of a new system, such as PS3, you should be able to better anticipate any obstacles and plan accordingly."

But improvement is definitely possible. There's nothing wrong with a strategically timed game release; that's just smart business. And certainly gamers don't need to know all the ins and outs behind a company's business objectives; that would be disadvantageous. But publishers shouldn't turn those business objectives into a PR opportunity to pitch superficial quality to gamers. Why not let the games do the talking while being up front with consumers when a rescheduling occurs?

All told, target dates are strategic in and of themselves. When a game does get delayed for legitimate quality reasons, publishers would be foolish not to reschedule it for the next opportunistic business period. Hence, game makers don't have much of a case pitching quality alone when delaying their games.

So what's the real reason behind game delays? It's the strategy, stupid.

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