Game Delays and Release Dates - The Downfall of the Gaming Community

Recently, there's been a lot of upset within the gaming community. Game developers are constantly harassed over a lack of release dates while others are harassed over being released too early.

Forspoken, and by proxy the developers, are now being scrutinized for postponing the game and not "sticking" to their initial release date of this June.

God of War: Ragnorok has been highly anticipated for 4 years at this point, and the lack of a definitive release date angered people that posed as fans of the game and took it upon themselves to start harassing developers and other people that worked on the game.

Monkey Island was and is a beloved game, but the reveal of the art style the remake is going to use set "fans" off and spurred them to direct tons of hate to the game director, to the point where he decided to no longer post about the game until it releases.

Ever since the chaotic release of Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020, a lot more attention has been bought to companies who rush games, and in turn, developers, to meet deadlines they put on themselves. It has also bought attention to the gaming community, which can put pressure on developers to hurry up and "just release the game" instead of postponing the game.

Now, game devs are stuck between a rock and a hard space, as people continue to try and rush them to pick a release date and stick to it, and then complain about the half-baked game they're given.

Think of it like going to the bakery. Games are like the cakes from cake boss. It takes hours or even days to even come up with a concept for it, much less bake, sculpt, and assmble it into a masterpiece. At this point, the gaming community is a Karen that wants this complicated cake to be baked and ready when we want it, not matter how long the bakers (developers) say its going to take to make a finished cake. Unfortunately, the only choice they have is to make an unrealistic release date.

When that happens, you can end up with another Battlefield 2042, where gamers are handed an obviously clunky game that wasn't tested properly. In that case, we knew what we were in for, but we were naive. Instead of telling the developers to postpone the game until the game-breaking bugs were fixed, we assured ourselves that these bugs would just be solved by the release date. Of course, that wasn't the case, and instead of blaming ourselves for lying to the developers about what needed to be fixed and assuring them that we could wait, we decided to act like children and pass all of the blame onto them.

Now, we have developers who are trying not to make the same mistakes, but are being ridiculed for it. Not sure if the game is ready? Post a release date you know you can't keep and stick with it, or postpone when you feel it's necessary. No matter what you choose to do, as a developer there is no way to avoid backlash from people who want the perfect game in their hands right now instead of when it's ready.

Having a beloved and highly anticipated game postponed can be really frustrating. Forspoken was going to come out about a week before my birthday and Gotham Knights was supposed to come out this summer. But I'd much rather spend time playing my growing catalog of PS Plus and Game Pass games than spend precious time trying to play a broken, sometimes unplayable game. Even if the extra time is from a marketing perspective, it'll still give the devs time to iron out any bugs they caught but weren;t sure if they could fix before launch.

Plus, let's be honest. Who is going to put down God of War: Ragnorok to pick up Forspoken, or rather, who's isn't going to immediately put down Forspoken to play Ragnorok when it comes out. The pandemic and recent failed game launches have given a lot of gaming companies a new perspective and also left them playing catch-up. There's no way we were supposed to wait 4 years for Ragnorok, but no one can control the pandemic or the changing work environment. We're still adjusting and the pandemic isn't over. There are plenty of people that are still getting Covid as we speak. So instead of making game developers' lives more stressful and unhappy, we could (and should) be more understanding and give them time to polish what they're working on.

Look at it this way, if you anger a baker enough, whats to stop them from not giving you what you ask for, or just half-assing the entire order out of spite or unhappiness. Developers are the one's that are making these games and putting in countless hours into making sure they work. When they lose that motivation, what's stopping them from not working on it or losing what little motivation they might have in the homestretch?