Don’t Feel Pressure to Give Release Dates for Games That Aren’t Ready
(Major Offenders – Pretty much anything delayed like Persona 5, Crackdown 3, etc.)
Nobody would envy the amount of pressure laid on development teams. Not only are they working day and night to create something they hope people love, but everyone wants the games as soon as possible. This often leads developers to give dates that they hope they can reach, but are often overreaching. You can’t account for unforeseen circumstances such as changes in budget, pressure from publishers, changes in direction, or bugs that arise. What ultimately happens is dates need to be shifted, usually further into the future.
Now the mistake here isn’t setting a date. It’s cool that they felt confident enough at that time to make a decision. The mistake is letting outside forces coerce some arbitrary date that’s unrealistic or, at least, far too optimistic. While its understandable for outside forces to start to apply a little bit of pressure after maybe a decade of unclear development, if it’s only been a couple of years in the making, just let us know it will be ready when ready.
There are a lot of great games due out in 2017, many of which are set at TBA, and that’s fine. Take whatever time you need to make a great game, don’t rush and give empty promises.
