Game Announcement Timing is Killing Titles

This morning, rumors began to swirl around the brand new Fable game being developed by Playground Games. The rumor is that because of an inability to work with the current engine, the development team has had to scale back the quality of the game. Rumors are just that, rumors. But it does highlight one major problem with the video game industry – the announcement of games too early.

I get the argument – when things are quiet or your brand is taking a hit, drop a game announcement and see if that fixes some of the damage. And that’s what Microsoft did, when the announced a brand new Fable game with no hint at a release date. Now much later than the announcement, there is no end in sight to the development, meaning we are likely waiting until late 2023 or even 2024 before we see the game available. That’s a long time.

Bethesda walked the same path. Guess what Elder Scrolls fans, the Elder Scrolls VI is coming to a console near you, in half a decade. Half. A. Decade. Why are we announcing games this early. Not everyone is falling into this trap. Nintendo is probably the king of making game announcements, forgetting about Breath of the Wild II. But look at other titles. Let’s take a look at a list:

Mario Strikers: Battle League – Announced in February 2022, releasing in June 2022.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – Announced February 2022, releasing in July 2022.

Splatoon 3 – Announced February 2021, releasing in September 2022.

Fire Emblem Three Hopes – Announced February 2022, releasing in June 2022.

That’s only a few examples, but these are fairly decent franchises for Nintendo, and for most of them, there was less than six months between when the game was announced and when the game launched. Why can’t other companies go down this road. You can avoid delay fatigue, the long waiting game, and more. Nintendo can do it, why can’t you?