Has anyone else noticed how long some developers take to actually finish their games these days? Is it because they are more demanding to make? Is it because they cost more? I remember waiting and waiting for Morrowind, and then Neverwinter Nights, to only name two of the most anticipated RPGs this year, if not of all time. Anyone that has ever loved one of Blizzard's games can also attest for the often long wait they are submitted to. But why? Is it a trend? Are some developers playing with us?

The birth of Hype
The answer is probably none of those things. In fact, in my opinion games do not necessarily take longer to create than they ever used to. They take as long, give or take a few well known exceptions. The problem is the hype and the publicity that surround games these days. Seeing an ad in a printed magazine for a game that won't come out for at least another year is not that uncommon. But the worst culprit is the famous World Wide Web.

In the 80's, there were probably only a handful of printed magazines that talked about games. Because there were so little outlets for games in general in those days, publishers couldn't create as much hype as the web lets them now. The explosion of the Internet has created an unprecedented hype machine. A machine that the marketing departments of many game publishers were quick to put to good use.

A well oiled machine
Marketing is a powerful tool. Companies that use it well harvest the greatest benefits. Unfortunately for gamers, it seems that a well constructed marketing campaign for any given game means that its name has to be out on the streets long before the game will actually hit the shelves. Sometimes years before! They slowly and willingly create a little hype at first, and then let the players do their thing.

Just look at Star Wars: Galaxies (SW:G from now on) for example. Granted, the name attached to this game gives it a huge amount of hype even before the marketing department gets their eager hands on it. But have you ever seen a game that you know will be perfect before you even get to play it? According to some "fanboys" SW:G is a perfect game, calling it the greatest MMORPG to ever hit the market. These are words I picked up from message boards by regular fans. SW:G IS a perfect game? How can it be, it's not even a game yet, it barely started its first BETA phase! The greatest MMORPG to ever hit the market? It hasn't even hit gold status!

But this is exactly what the publishers want: their game is already sold to these "fanboys". And the few that utter these words of praise before the game is even finished will probably convince a few others to blindly buy it as soon as it hits the shelves. That's an easy way of selling game boxes for them. Mind you, most developers, those who actually create the games, will probably tell you that they don't like that strategy much though... Imagine being in their shoes for a moment. The players are expecting perfection. Keeping up with the SW:G example, can you imagine what the outcry will be when the first crop of bugs pop up in the game after it's released? Can you imagine the pressure the makers of that game are under to come out with a perfect product on time?

A new Trend
On top of the hype, we're seeing a new trend slowly creeping up since the last couple of years. Have you noticed that games are nowadays often being made for both PC and consoles at the same time? Have you also noticed that when the two versions are being developed simultaneously the console version is often coming out before the PC version? Well, this may be explained with the Q&A and testing phases being much shorter on a console since they don't have to deal with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of possible hardware combinations that you can find on the PC platform. But could there be a new marketing scheme here? Are the publishers making more money out of the console version of their games? Is there an added perk to doing this?

I would be curious to know how many gamers that both have any given console and a PC will buy both versions depending on which one of them will come out first. Does an Xbox owner that buys a game which came out for the Xbox first also buy the PC version when it hits the shelves in a healthy percentage of time? Does the opposite scenario, a game that is released for the PC before the console version, hinder sales of one or the other version? So many questions, so many mysteries, and no real answer...

Patience is golden
No, most games don't really take longer to create. We just know about them long before we actually should.

Why complain when a game is delayed? I myself don't really mind when an announcement is made to say that a certain game will not be out on time. That means that the developer will be fine-tuning things before they put it on the shelves, and that is a good thing! Gamers should learn to be patient. Hype is the bane of a rushed game, look at what happened to the ill fated Daikatana... And the irony is that those gamers that were most vocal in praising and asking for the game before it was even ready are often the first to complain about the bugs and the state of the code once they finally have it in their eager hands.

We gamers are such an inconsistent bunch that we will ask that any given game be both released on time and be totally bug free. Honestly, we see that very rarely in the world of PC games. Let's collectively take a long breath and calm down. Let the hype machine roll by and wait for the game to be released before praising its perfection.