The Importance of Timing Game Releases

Hey Guys, this is a topic that I feel should be talked about more often because people often overlook the development time for a game and when developers feel is the right time to release games. I recently stumbled upon an interview on Polygon where Shannon Loftis, general manager for Microsoft Studios Publishing, stated, "I think we probably announced Crackdown too early"(Loftis).

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Okay, Crackdown 3 was announced back in June 2014. Literally, over three years at this point. Now, it's being pushed back into "Spring 2018". I say that in quotes because we don't know when in the Spring and we don't know if there is going to be another delay.

The usual development time is about 2 or 3 years. With that in mind, you'd think that Crackdown 3 would be released sometime between 2016 and 2017. However, Crackdown 3 was in very early development when it was announced. Additionally, the Xbox One wasn't even out for a full year at this point and Microsoft was talking about cloud computing...in a multiplayer game.

Cloud computing really hasn't been done before in a multiplayer game let alone on a console that hasn't been on the market for very long, so announcing Crackdown 3 will be utilizing cloud computing technology that early in development is absurd.

At the same time, I guess Microsoft wanted to release more exclusives because the community's main criticism is the lack of Xbox exclusive games. Thus, having people hyped up for Crackdown 3 is needed to keep Xbox users coming back or to have a new audience. However, this could have been announced at either E3 2016 or E3 2017.

It's also a good thing that this isn't being pushed around the holiday season because there are already enough games coming out in Broketober.

At the end of the day, we don't even know if Crackdown 3 is going to be good. For all we know, this could be another disappointment and we'll be talking about how this game was in development for years and how Microsoft has been hyping this game up to be the definitive Xbox exclusive fans have been asking for. Is this game really going to take advantage of the Xbox One X's power? We don't know.

If Microsoft-or at least someone from Microsoft-admitted that Crackdown 3 was announced too early, then you know something is wrong. I guess we can be thankful that they don't want to rush the release. However, let this be a lesson that video games should pick a schedule and stick to it. Don't release a game too early that we need to wait for it to be finished or release a game too late to where it could lead to it being either disappointing or forgotten about.
Till Next Time!!