Escapist Magazine just posted an interesting news bit in which Square-Enix CEO Yoichi Wada says, "It takes too long for us to produce a game..." The article then goes on to mention that while five years is a long time to wait for their latest game, Starcraft II has been in the works since 2003 and Diablo 3 has been in development in one form or another since 2001. However, when you consider Blizzard's track record for making superb games that people are still playing over a decade after being released, it's obviously worth the wait. And as the article mentions, we can always look on the bright side because 3D Realms' Duke Nukem Forever has been in development for 12 years and we still don't know when it'll actually be released.
So this brings up an interesting question: What do you consider to be "too long" of a wait for the development of a game? Would you rather have smaller games with less refinement or are you a firm believer in quality over quantity and therefore willing to wait as long as it takes to get the game done properly?
I hope this game comes out before I'm 20 (19 right now)... I don't want to be the 20 year old who plays Diablo 3 8 hours a day. At 21 I give in completely
I would of much preferred to be 16-18 when this game came out
So basically, the longer this game takes to come out, the more I'm going to restrict myself from playing it when its released
Quote from "Gregz" »
mistake where they develop the games so long they turn out outdated graphically
I believe there was graphical complaints about Diablo 2, only a couple years after its released. People complained about pixelation and resolution size
For D3, I doubt they're going to add any graphic effects like different lighting after the release though... Don't think there will be any HDR
I don't care how long it takes for a company to develop a game.
I am tired of the market being saturated year after year with terrible, unpolished games. I would rather wait and play an awesome game 5 years from now, than play that same game tomorrow before it's gone through it's complete, polished development cycle.
It's a problem from publishers mostly. Developers generally want as much time as they can afford to make their game. But publishers push release dates because they will only spend a certain amount of money on a project in order to maximize their capital. Other times well, developers just suck, and their project shouldn't have been green lighted in the first place lol.
Thank goodness Blizzard doesn't have this problem.
Personally i think a game that is in development with a solid team of developers should only take at max 4 years.
This does not mean that it would suffer from bugs and rushed development, I just believe that with the amount of money they make they could get a bigger team to work on it and get it out faster.
Blizzard's money gain from WoW is huge. 11million subscribers ill guess that 2million are Euro/American.
Thats 30million a month!
Most games the total Investment cost is less than that!
Not to mention they make a killing off of Blizzcon.
I really don't think Blizzard is doing all that they can do for their gaming fans.
So for any other company besides Blizzard 4 years in development seems right. But with Blizzards capital I really think they could push out great games in 3 years.
Off Topic:
I've been somewhat bummed but I do think Blizzard as a company, not saying their games are bad, just as a company has gone down the drain.
I personally think the CEO's are getting huge fat checks that are just rediculous.
I think that it is reasonable for a large company to release a new game every 4-5 years. People have complained already that there are WOW aspects to what they have seen in D3. If you start pushing a company (as large as Blizzard or not) to produce titles every year or two you will see a sharp decline in quality and a lot of reuse of UI. Creativity takes some time. It shows in any television show. They get caught in a generic plot scheme and each episode in it generalized plot is the same. After some time passes and the writers take time to get creative, a pearl of an episode emerges. Those are the episodes fans love because it breaks the mold from what they have seen week after week. This pearl is what Blizzard tries to achieve with each new game. 4-5 years seems reasonable for it.
There is an important balance between quality and quantity. Blizz tends to lean towards the quality-side which should be commended in today's economy.
With that said, they need to release this game asap. Blizz's marketing team is savvy and tries to keep people interested in their games as long as possible, but they also tend to frustrate their fan base with delayed releases.
Think about how quickly they were able to release expansions for WoW. It makes you wonder why D3 is taking so long.
I think 5-10 years is a long wait, but if the quality of the game is good, and it is something that will last a long time, then by all means, take your time. There's something about well developed games that'd make you want to wait forever if you had to.
It really depends on the game and its genre. I am always willing to wait for a game if itll be better, but games lilke zelda shouldnt take 10 years to make and at the same time they shouldnt (as no game should) take a couple months. Zelda games should be given a couple years space usually as it allows for adequate developement time as well as the players to not be burnt out from the series (tony hawk, NFS, mario party, ect.).
That being said, with certain games around 10 years seems to be fine. And by certain games i more or less mean diablo as i dont mind that it has taken so long because diablo II is the most amazing game ever developed and i can play it again and again for 10 years lol. Zelda games are outstanding but after a few playthroughs you are going to need a break before you play it again as to where diablo II has the most replaybality i have ever seen in any game.
so it all boils down to a balance and the fact that diablo is in a league of its own and certainly is a unique circumstance. I am ready for diablo III :).
Of course we all want a great game. I kind of agree with Snowfreak in that it depends. Not so much on genre, but on the game itself. Some games will just be easier to develop than others. I think with Diablo 3 it has been a longer process because it has to live up to, and then surpass the previous two installments in the series. There are just a lot of expectations of this game, along with SC2.
They also have the resources to punch out a great game in a reasonable amount of time and I'd be dissapointed if it took them 5 more years for D3 like someone said they'd be willing to wait. That's way too long. I supposed I would have to wait, but that's too long in my opinion. If they can't put a sweet game together in 5-7 yrs something is wrong.
I just wish I didn't know about it so soon. I would much rather to have known about it and see it released a month later.
Knowing for so long and seeing things progressing just kills us. I don't mind that a game might take 5 years to be released, but I wish it was announced closer to its release. Although I guess that DIII couldn't be held secret for longer than that and risk the news being leaked or something...
I just wish I could forget all about it and surprisingly find out only the day the box finally arrives at my desk... :/
For those of you that are willing to wait 4, 5, 6 more years for D3...how old are u? You guys DO realize that if ur in HS right now, the real world is coming in a few years and all that free time you have now is gonna disappear. well unless you plan on still living with your parents.
To me its about preparation and having a clear goal and design document, the actual development shouldn't take longer then 5 years, in fact i thinks its a very long time for a game to be in development, something which i doubt doesn't affect the quality of the end product negatively.
I think that I read somewhere that the initial D3 design was scrapped and reworked to what we are seeing now. I do not have a reference for this but if it is the case we should keep that in mind for the length of time they have been developing this next installment.
Think about how quickly they were able to release expansions for WoW. It makes you wonder why D3 is taking so long.
/finallysomecommonsense
Because WoW players won't tolerate Blizz's bullshit when they're making monthly payments and they'll move on to another game instead of waiting, meanwhile us Diablo players get demonic dick in the ass since they aren't making money off of us. I don't care how much you love the game, a business is a business and you're profit, so remember this for the next time you go to say "Blizz 'cares' about their fans" and correct yourself, "Blizz 'customer services' their fans." What better way to make us loyal than to make us feel good and involve our emotions in the product? Business 101, if you're sellin' somethin' involvin' the customer/client's emotions, you will succeed.
I think thats quite a harsh way of looking at it. Yes Blizzard wants to make a profit but at the same time I think the developers must have a little bit of care for the fans or they wouldn't spend so much efort in talking to us on the forums etc.
I find it hard to belive that the people who work on the game don't care about what the fan base thinks or how they're making us feel. The company as a whole may not care personaly but I think the individuals who make it must do in order to do such a great job.
I think also its easier for them to make WoW expansions because the framework is already there they just have to build on it. With D3 its like starting from scratch. But for the most part I agree with Airandius.
Of course they wanna spend time knowing what we want so that they can make it for us so that we give them money for it......
Anyone selling or inventing anything does this, Blizz is just smarter and takes it way further, hence we the fans take our loyalty and checkbooks further. Basic math/cause & effect.
Nope, Blizz doesn't rush WoW. I have one buddy who plays WoW; when WotLK came out he completed most of it in about 20 hours.
If you (WORKED HARD TO) pay monthly to play Diablo II and completed 95% of what LoD had to offer in 20 hours, how long would you pay money to play a game with nothing left to offer?
Um. I can safely say that Blizz does not rush Expansions for wow. Did not see a thing wrong with WOTLK. They DO, however, rush patches for wow that F up play of a few days afterwards.
Sure I understand Blizzard not giving release dates now. It doesn't get people up set over it, though as much it painful the wait is. (I better not see "When will it be release questions?" We all going know their response to that one.)
But while thats one thing, it also allows Blizzard to drag things much longer than its needed. If they going to give out a release date, that give them a time frame with to work on and pressure and get the product out the door and their get their moola. If something not finished, put it in exp 2 or a patch.
Lets take SC2. Say it was going to be release on 5-16-09 but then Blizzard says "Well there more technical difficulties that needs work on.", so its pushed to 8-15-09 and same story again. This time it the units and its... UGH... 2-5-10! I hope you get the gist of this, no release dates = dragging their heels for god know what years, dates = game released, its that simple.
But what about the other two SC2 "games/campaigns"? How long will that take? 2-3 years?! I'm just going to it, I WANT SC2 NOW! I DON'T WAIT ANY LONGER! WAIT FOR 11 SOME YEARS FOR IT!:mad: You could have said it back in oct 08 blizzcon and spare us the agony.:( Don't take me wrong, Blizzard has always and will create great games/lore but they sure do drag it too long.
I think we're just going to have to accept that Blizzard is like what insurance companies call "acts of god"... You can't predict them, you can't control them and your usualy not insured against them
But one thing is for sure when one does happen it will be when we least expect it.
I don't think their is a such thing as too long when it comes to quality game development; But if a game company waits too long, their initial fan base will be all 'grown up' and may possibly lose interest. I also think that game developers should wait longer before actually announcing the game. If it gets to be over two years after a game is announced and it still isn't released, then I start losing interest.
Actually, I stopped following up-to-the-minute D3 info a while back (I check up on it once a month or so). But I think if D3 comes out in 2010 (witch is when I was expecting it to be released anyways) I won't mind, too much.
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I would of much preferred to be 16-18 when this game came out
So basically, the longer this game takes to come out, the more I'm going to restrict myself from playing it when its released
I believe there was graphical complaints about Diablo 2, only a couple years after its released. People complained about pixelation and resolution size
For D3, I doubt they're going to add any graphic effects like different lighting after the release though... Don't think there will be any HDR
I am tired of the market being saturated year after year with terrible, unpolished games. I would rather wait and play an awesome game 5 years from now, than play that same game tomorrow before it's gone through it's complete, polished development cycle.
It's a problem from publishers mostly. Developers generally want as much time as they can afford to make their game. But publishers push release dates because they will only spend a certain amount of money on a project in order to maximize their capital. Other times well, developers just suck, and their project shouldn't have been green lighted in the first place lol.
Thank goodness Blizzard doesn't have this problem.
This does not mean that it would suffer from bugs and rushed development, I just believe that with the amount of money they make they could get a bigger team to work on it and get it out faster.
Blizzard's money gain from WoW is huge. 11million subscribers ill guess that 2million are Euro/American.
Thats 30million a month!
Most games the total Investment cost is less than that!
Not to mention they make a killing off of Blizzcon.
I really don't think Blizzard is doing all that they can do for their gaming fans.
So for any other company besides Blizzard 4 years in development seems right. But with Blizzards capital I really think they could push out great games in 3 years.
Off Topic:
I've been somewhat bummed but I do think Blizzard as a company, not saying their games are bad, just as a company has gone down the drain.
I personally think the CEO's are getting huge fat checks that are just rediculous.
With that said, they need to release this game asap. Blizz's marketing team is savvy and tries to keep people interested in their games as long as possible, but they also tend to frustrate their fan base with delayed releases.
Think about how quickly they were able to release expansions for WoW. It makes you wonder why D3 is taking so long.
That being said, with certain games around 10 years seems to be fine. And by certain games i more or less mean diablo as i dont mind that it has taken so long because diablo II is the most amazing game ever developed and i can play it again and again for 10 years lol. Zelda games are outstanding but after a few playthroughs you are going to need a break before you play it again as to where diablo II has the most replaybality i have ever seen in any game.
so it all boils down to a balance and the fact that diablo is in a league of its own and certainly is a unique circumstance. I am ready for diablo III :).
They also have the resources to punch out a great game in a reasonable amount of time and I'd be dissapointed if it took them 5 more years for D3 like someone said they'd be willing to wait. That's way too long. I supposed I would have to wait, but that's too long in my opinion. If they can't put a sweet game together in 5-7 yrs something is wrong.
Knowing for so long and seeing things progressing just kills us. I don't mind that a game might take 5 years to be released, but I wish it was announced closer to its release. Although I guess that DIII couldn't be held secret for longer than that and risk the news being leaked or something...
I just wish I could forget all about it and surprisingly find out only the day the box finally arrives at my desk... :/
I think that I read somewhere that the initial D3 design was scrapped and reworked to what we are seeing now. I do not have a reference for this but if it is the case we should keep that in mind for the length of time they have been developing this next installment.
/finallysomecommonsense
Because WoW players won't tolerate Blizz's bullshit when they're making monthly payments and they'll move on to another game instead of waiting, meanwhile us Diablo players get demonic dick in the ass since they aren't making money off of us. I don't care how much you love the game, a business is a business and you're profit, so remember this for the next time you go to say "Blizz 'cares' about their fans" and correct yourself, "Blizz 'customer services' their fans." What better way to make us loyal than to make us feel good and involve our emotions in the product? Business 101, if you're sellin' somethin' involvin' the customer/client's emotions, you will succeed.
I find it hard to belive that the people who work on the game don't care about what the fan base thinks or how they're making us feel. The company as a whole may not care personaly but I think the individuals who make it must do in order to do such a great job.
Anyone selling or inventing anything does this, Blizz is just smarter and takes it way further, hence we the fans take our loyalty and checkbooks further. Basic math/cause & effect.
Nope, Blizz doesn't rush WoW. I have one buddy who plays WoW; when WotLK came out he completed most of it in about 20 hours.
If you (WORKED HARD TO) pay monthly to play Diablo II and completed 95% of what LoD had to offer in 20 hours, how long would you pay money to play a game with nothing left to offer?
But while thats one thing, it also allows Blizzard to drag things much longer than its needed. If they going to give out a release date, that give them a time frame with to work on and pressure and get the product out the door and their get their moola. If something not finished, put it in exp 2 or a patch.
Lets take SC2. Say it was going to be release on 5-16-09 but then Blizzard says "Well there more technical difficulties that needs work on.", so its pushed to 8-15-09 and same story again. This time it the units and its... UGH... 2-5-10! I hope you get the gist of this, no release dates = dragging their heels for god know what years, dates = game released, its that simple.
But what about the other two SC2 "games/campaigns"? How long will that take? 2-3 years?! I'm just going to it, I WANT SC2 NOW! I DON'T WAIT ANY LONGER! WAIT FOR 11 SOME YEARS FOR IT!:mad: You could have said it back in oct 08 blizzcon and spare us the agony.:( Don't take me wrong, Blizzard has always and will create great games/lore but they sure do drag it too long.
But one thing is for sure when one does happen it will be when we least expect it.
Actually, I stopped following up-to-the-minute D3 info a while back (I check up on it once a month or so). But I think if D3 comes out in 2010 (witch is when I was expecting it to be released anyways) I won't mind, too much.