question: Why do (game) companies wait so long to announce that they're working on a new title/product?
comment: Hype has a life span. If they announce it 2 years before it comes out everyone will forget about it by the time it comes out
passages: BULLET::::- Product slippage is common due to the uncertain schedules of software development. Most publishers have suffered a "false launch", in which the development staff assures the company that game development will be completed by a certain date, and a marketing launch is planned around that date, including advertising commitments, and then after all the advertising is paid for, the development staff announces that the game will "slip", and will actually be ready several months later than originally intended. When the game finally appears, the effects among consumers of the marketing launch—excitement and "buzz" over the release of the game and an intent to purchase have dissipated, and lackluster interest leads to weak sales. An example of this is the PSP version of "Spider-Man 3". These problems are compounded if the game is supposed to ship for the Christmas selling season, but actually slips into the subsequent year. Some developers (notably id and Epic) have alleviated this problem by simply saying that a given game will be released "when it's done", only announcing a definite date once the game is released to manufacturing. However, this sometimes can be problematic as well, as seen with "Duke Nukem Forever".
   As a game nears completion, the publisher will want to showcase a demo of the title at trade shows. Many games have a "Trade Show demo" scheduled.
   The concept documentation can be separated into three stages or documents—high concept, pitch and concept; however, there is no industry standard naming convention, for example, both Bethke (2003) and Bates (2004) refer to "pitch document" as "game proposal", yet Moore, Novak (2010) refers to "concept document" as "game proposal".
  
  The late stage of pre-production may also be referred to as "proof of concept", or "technical review" when more detailed game documents are produced.
  
  Publishers have started to expect broader game proposals even featuring playable prototypes.
  
  Section::::Development process.:Pre-production.:High concept.
   Naughty Dog has said future titles will have to live up to a "really high" quality standard. Speaking to IGN, lead effects artist Keith Guerrette said success has made the studio "a little bit reluctant, actually, if we do sit back and decide to continue with the "Uncharted" world, because we don't want to "ruin" the series." According to Naughty Dog, it was a mistake to reveal "Uncharted 3"s release date a year out with the challenges involved with completing a game by its due date. "We will never do that again, not a year out", sighed co-president Christophe Balestra during an interview with Eurogamer. "The minute we saw the date on screen we were like, 'Oh God, I really regret that'", Evan Wells agreed.
   On February 2, 2012, a public trial of "Shiny Days" was released for download. Eight days later on February 10, 0verflow announced that the game had been postponed from its original launch date to sometime in late April. The company followed up this announcement on March 12, stating that a more specific date would be posted in the next couple of days. The date change was announced on Nico Nico Douga as April 27.
   "Eurogamer"s Wesley Yin-Poole observed that following "No Man's Sky" problematic release, developers appear to be "keeping their cards close to their chests for fear of failing to deliver on a promise that never should have slipped out in the first place"; as an example, he stated that Rare's "Sea of Thieves", whereas having only been promoted through obscure videos that left too many questions to potential players in its earlier stages, has started an "Insider" programme in December 2016 to provide limited alpha-testing access and more concrete gameplay videos. Similarly, Compulsion Games, who premiered their game "We Happy Few" at PAX East 2015 to similar hype as "No Man's Sky", worked to backtrack on perceived expectations of their game after seeing what had happened to "No Man's Sky" at its launch. Specifically, Compulsion, a small developer, found that many were treating their title as a AAA release, and wanted to be clear what the game was to be, deciding to use the early access approach to provide transparency.
   Ubisoft hosted a press conference on June 9 at 3:00pm. Upcoming action-adventure games included "Tom Clancy's The Division", "The Crew", "" and the sequels "Assassin's Creed Unity" and "Far Cry 4". "" and "Just Dance 2015" were also announced during the conference.
  
  Section::::Press conferences.:Sony.
   "The Last of Us" was officially announced in 2011; it was heavily promoted and widely anticipated. Naughty Dog missed the original release date, delaying the game in order for further polishing. Naughty Dog marketed the game through video trailers and press demonstrations, announcing specific details about the game as development continued. Various special editions of the game were released, along with a featuring characters from the game.
  
  Section::::Production.
   Commercial game development projects may be required to meet milestones set by publisher. Milestones mark major events during game development and are used to track game's progress. Such milestones may be, for example, "first playable", "alpha", or "beta" game versions. Project milestones depend on the developer schedules.
   "The Alliance Alive" was first announced in October 2016, along with its principle staff, development studio and publisher. When the game was announced, the staff were optimizing several elements such as distances between locations and encounter rates on the world map. Originally scheduled for release on March 30, 2016, the game was delayed by nearly three months to increase its quality. A game demo was released on its original release date of March 30. Using player feedback from the demo, the development team were able to make adjustments to the game, such as gameplay speed and font size. The game released on June 22 of that year, with a special soundtrack and 3DS themes releasing along with the game as compensation for the delay.
   BULLET::::- The Last Guardian: "The Last Guardian" was announced in 2007 to be in development at Team Ico. A short trailer released in 2007 shows a young boy who befriends a giant bird/cat-like creature. Creative conflicts between the developers and the publisher Sony, caused the game to remain in development hell, particularly after project lead Fumito Ueda left Sony but remained active in the game's development. Further, the development delay caused Sony to switch the target platform from the aging PlayStation 3 to the newer PlayStation 4, further extending the time to rework the game's engine. Sony assured fans that the game was still in development over the next six years, but were sparse on further details, until June 2015 when the game was formally re-introduced as a PlayStation 4 title which was released in December 2016.
   Some games can take much longer than the average time frame to complete. An infamous example is 3D Realms' "Duke Nukem Forever", announced to be in production in April 1997 and released fourteen years later in June 2011. Planning for Maxis' game "Spore" began in late 1999; the game was released nine years later in September 2008. The game "Prey" was briefly profiled in a 1997 issue of PC Gamer, but was not released until 2006, and only then in highly altered form. Finally, "Team Fortress 2" was in development from 1998 until its 2007 release, and emerged from a convoluted development process involving "probably three or four different games", according to Gabe Newell.
   Sony announced that "Alienation" would be released sometime in 2015. The game was later delayed until March 2, 2016, and further pushed back to March 23. Another delay postponed its release until April 26, when it was part of Sony's PlayStation Store Launch Party 2016 promotion: six games released over a seven-week period.
  
  Section::::Development and release.:After release.
   Despite the dangers of overlooking regression testing, some game developers and publishers fail to test the full feature suite of the game and ship a game with bugs. This can result in customers dissatisfaction and failure to meet sales goals. When this does happen, most developers and publishers quickly release patches that fix the bugs and make the game fully playable again.
  
  Section::::Development process.:Milestones.
   In February 2013, Naughty Dog announced that "The Last of Us" would miss its intended release date of May 7, 2013, delaying it until June 14, 2013 to allow for further polishing. "[I]nstead of cutting corners or compromising our vision, we came to the tough decision that the game deserved a few extra weeks to ensure every detail of "The Last of Us" was up to Naughty Dog’s internal high standards," Naughty Dog stated in a press release.
  
  Section::::Business.:Release trailers.
   On December 26, 2015, updates were posted on the project's Kickstarter page stating that the game was going to be using a 2D system rather than using the 3D graphics shown in the teaser trailer, asset reel, and other footage. It is stated that this is "to make things a little more cost-efficient, and more rapidly producible over the full span of the series".
   Following Pendulo Studios' unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign for its project "Day One" in September 2012, the developer neared bankruptcy and entered a two-year period of inactivity. Crowdfunding had been the company's attempt to survive after it was unable to secure a traditional publisher. Pendulo's Juan Miguel Marín recalled the period as "a bad time", while Albert Garciá of "La Vanguardia" noted that "the future of this company was uncertain" at the time. The developer's disappearance ended in mid-December 2014, when the studio signed a deal with Microïds to create an unannounced new adventure game. Its development began "immediately", according to Pendulo. The project was revealed as "Yesterday Origins" in May 2015.
   Section::::Release.
  
  Section::::Release.:Rumours and announcement.
  
  During a September 2009 earnings call, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked about "Grand Theft Auto V", the purported next game in the series. He replied, "We're not going to announce it, we're not going to announce when we are going to announce it, and we are not going to announce a strategy about announcing it or about when we are going to announce it either, or about the announcement strategy surrounding the announcement of the strategy".
   Warhorse Studios first announced that they were working on an "unannounced role-playing game" on 9 February 2012, having successfully licensed CryEngine 3 on this date. After seventeen months working on the prototype, Warhorse began a tour pitching the prototype to various international investors. The project did not generate the hype they had hoped for and with dwindling resources, little progress had been made towards an investment.
   The Computer Show thought the game could have been a surprise hit upon its original proposed release date of April 1998. PC Action announced the game would be released in August 1998. However, "PC Zone" noted that they had still not received a copy of the game by January 1999, remarking that such was usually indicative of one of two things: that the game is bad and the company is therefore scared to have it sent off for review before it is sold, and that they hadn't yet decided on release dates.
   The video game industry utilizes FOMO to get consumers/players to engage in the medium. Video game publishers will create release windows with early access for those that pay for their subscription service. An example is the publisher Electronic Arts. On their main website they have posted, “Try new EA games before launch day. Your save progress carries over to the full game if you decide to buy.” This can be seen in the release of the game Anthem, where Electronic Arts released a chart depicting the various ways to purchase the game and which would grant early access to the game.
   In October 2014, Marvel held a press event to announce the titles of their Phase Three films. The event, which drew comparisons to Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, was done because all the information was ready. As Feige explained, "We wanted to do this at [San Diego] Comic-Con this year. Things were not set ... So the plan has been, since a few weeks before Comic-Con when we realized we weren't going to be able to do everything we wanted to do, is to decide 'let's do either something we haven't done in a long time, or something we've never done.' Which is a singular event, just to announce what we have when it's ready. I thought that might be early August or mid-September, it ended up being [at the end of October]."
   In late May 2013 JENilsson, the co-founder of Frictional Games, stated in a forum post that: "We know we will not make Q2 (2013), we also know when the game will be ready for launch. We have not set the exact day yet. You can however make good use of the weather outside this summer and look forward to gaming with the piggies as the summer comes to an end." Dan Pinchbeck stated, "Frictional's take is, release it when it's done." In August 2013, The Chinese Room confirmed on their Twitter feed that the final release date for the game was 10 September 2013. The game was available to pre-order since 16 August.
   Section::::Release and marketing.
  
  Bethesda and Splash Damage originally planned to release the game sometime in spring 2009, but pushed it back to fall 2010, before delaying it again. They later announced a release date of 17 May 2011. In April, a month before release, they pulled the release forward a week to 10 May, citing early completion of the game and a desire to get it in players’ hands as soon as possible.
  
  Section::::Release and marketing.:Pre-order bonuses.
   Double Fine Adventures' Kickstarter project "Broken Age" is another example of a project being delayed by feature creep. Originally supposed to have a release date of October 2012, the first half of the game was released in January 2014 while the second half followed late April 2015, and required two separate funding rounds to complete.
  
  Section::::Consequences.:Feeping creaturism.
  