Patience is a virtue

The long wait for some games can be a painful one, but can sometimes pay off in a big way. Some of the best games of all time took an extremely long time to develop. Six years separates Half-Life from Half-Life 2, nine years before Team Fortress 2 saw the light of day, and several long years passed before Warcraft III released to set the stage for World of Warcraft. In the meantime, Blizzard released StarCraft followed by the Brood Wars expansion a few months later. Blizzard's policy of not releasing games until they're done usually proves to be the best practice. Ubisoft's decision to spread out future Assassin's Creed games to avoid a decline in sales shows that a yearly release schedule isn't always profitable for a series. A similar effect was seen with the flood of Tomb Raider games. A lot of gamers got sick of Lara Croft and the diminishing number of innovations each sequel brought. So, letting gamers catch a break and making sure every game is the best it can possibly be before pushing it out the door seems like the best strategy.

We don't have forever

Not every developer can afford to spend a decade on a game. Bills need to be paid, and there's a window of time before general interest starts to wane. Afterwards, rumors of game development becomes running a joke, like with Duke Nukem Forever, which will probably spend many more years in development. Even Blizzard became victim of its own philosophy with Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, which was canceled because its development went long past the most gamers' interest in point-and-click adventure games. Plus, players are expected to remember what happened in a game from years ago in order to appreciate the story of the sequel. Let's not forget about the games that seem to spend forever in development, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (6 years), and still release with a huge number of bugs.

The bottom line


Valve proposed episodic games as a solution - a series of short, low cost, games that trade the large leaps of technological innovation gamers expect from full sequels for emphasis on story and characters. Episodes would play out like chapters from a book and could be put together in relatively short time. Valve since relaxed its expectations of episodic gaming by letting a year pass between Half-Life 2 Episode One and Two while Episode Three isn't expected to release this year. Although TellTale Games' Sam & Max series is an example of how well episodic gaming can be done well, it's on a very short list of success stories.

We don't want developers to rush half-finished games out the door in hopes of making it all better with patches later. At the same time, waiting a decade to find out how a story plays out seems absurd, especially considering how fast technology can change in a single year. There's a price to pay for making an audience wait too long, and sometimes (like with certain movies) the amount of hype and fervor that builds up over time can work against the game when it finally comes out and cannot live up to expectations.

Maybe the best solution is the one that already works. Release a big game, then follow it up with yearly expansions to add content while working on a true sequel. That way games stay fresh in people's minds, help finish a story within a relatively short time, all while working toward a big sequel.

Sound-Off!: Would you rather have a series of short game now or one big game later? How long could you wait for a game to release before losing interest?