this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023

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Gabe Newell on why game delays are okay: 'Late is just for a little while. Suck is forever.' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Okay, so there's game delays that actually have helped some games. Then there's games that sit on Early Access for what seems like forever, wondering what the fuck are they doing, like 7 Days to Die.

I like and respect games that, take their time because they want a certain vision of a game to work itself out as intended. I don't like and respect games that need to rush for the holidays or need to rush for company appeasement.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Gabe starts looking like Game-Gandalf more every day

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

And a canceled game is never bad

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's just not true anymore, especially with Steam. If a game releases in a sucky, broken state where more development time was definitely needed, nowadays the game companies will often just fix those games over time.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well it stills impacts the game and the brand, The smash-like game that got out in Beta that was almost great has fallen down to me not remmebering the name of the game because it was not memorable enough and not fully polished. They will have a second chance then the game will "fully launch" but for a lot of people the Beta launh was the full laucnh

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, 100%. If a game gets released in a mediocre unfinished state, and it doesn't capture the attention of the player base back then it can certainly kill the game, I agree completely.

However, my original comment was mostly referring to the fact that games can be updated nowadays, unlike in the older days when you bought a game (when buying games was mostly done via retail stores and physical copies) and if the game was bad, it would be bad forever. There's also the fact that there were a couple of high-profile cases where the game came out clearly unfinished or even unplayable (such as Fallout 76 and Cyberpunk 2077) that have fixed themselves, and if you were to mention that the game was bad at launch and how it was a bad business practice, you'd immediately get told to shut up and to look at what state the game is now.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Okay but Gabe, you're looking like a grandpa nowadays. Maybe you're waiting just a little too long.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

Suck is forever.

Unless you're No Man's Sky? Or Cyberpunk? Like games have been getting patches and updates for a long time, sometimes they get better, sometimes they get worse. Maybe he means your reputation as a developer and as a publisher is forever tarnished no matter how well you patch up the game post-launch.

In the days of Half Life 1? Yeah, it wasn't really feasible to patch games after they got printed on discs and left the warehouse.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah reptuational is part of the issue but there is also a big financial issue too. Delaying a game is financially difficult as it affects financial projects for each year with shareholders (who only care about share price growth). If you release a game in a poor state you get to hit some of the financial targets which benefits the publisher particularly, but for the developer it means longer terms sales are much lower as reviews and feedback come in that the game is crap. You then have to patch and repair the game.

Patching has allowed publishers and developers to get away with this releasing of games in bad states, but it doesn't change that fundamental issue which disproportionately affects the developer. Dev studios often only have 1 game being worked on at a time. An unready early release which is poorly recieved can be an existential crisis. For publishers, a poorly recieved game is a disappointment but generally have other many other games also on release so they can move on and not care as much.

No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk are high profile exceptions. The gaming world is littered with abandoned flops, often due to not being ready for release.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I'll never touch No Man's Sky because of the rugpull they did. It is sucky to me forever. If they made that game from the start - I would probably be playing it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Also, games that are delayed too much sometimes end up being outdated and therefore relatively bad. Eg. Duke Nukem Forever.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

A 12+ year delay is so extreme it needs its own category.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like he stole that from Nintendo.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Ironically, this was contadicted in the same documentary by the Half-Life devs when they were talking about Xen and how they were aware that it kinda sucked but the deadline was coming up…

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