Behind the Vapor: Games That Never Debuted

Vaporware and canceled games: What happened?
3/30/2009 8:38 PM | 6 Comments | Page 1 of 4

If you've checked out Crispy Gamer's coverage of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) over this past week, you've likely salivated at the prospect of so many promising games on the horizon.

But what if the best of the show never makes it to retail?

It could happen, as many hundreds of announced (and often, much-hyped) games in development never debut -- either because it takes so long to develop it falls into the dreaded "vaporware" abyss or it's officially canceled by the publisher.

It's a reality in the multibillion dollar interactive entertainment industry -- one that's often swept under the rug in the hopes that the community will forget these games even existed. Not only could this majorly disappoint a hardcore player eagerly awaiting the game's release, but this isn't easy for the developer whose team likely poured blood, sweat and tears into the project day after day, for years.

So, what happens? Surely, a game maker doesn't anticipate a 24-month project taking four years, nor would it expect a publisher to pull the plug on funding.

Is it vaporware or not?

First, let's differentiate the term "vaporware" from a canceled game. "Vaporware is any announced product -- in this case, a videogame -- that doesn't ship, year after year," says N'Gai Croal, an independent videogame design consultant and former Newsweek editor. "Vapor, of course, implies hot air [blown by the developer or publisher about its game], so if you put a mirror up to its mouth it's still alive -- as opposed to a killed game, which is, well, dead."

Perhaps the most notorious example of vaporware in the videogame world is 3D Realms' Duke Nukem Forever, first announced back in 1997. Yes, 12 years ago. Though promised to launch "when it's done," the cheeky first-person shooter has never seen the light of day, yet has not been officially canceled either. An example of a killed game, on the other hand, is Blizzard's StarCraft: Ghost, a sci-fi stealth action game announced in 2002 and cancelled in 2006.

OK, so why does it happen?

The reasons why a videogame never makes it to launch can vary greatly from project to project.

One reason is that the development team changes personnel over time, and it can be difficult to fill another person's shoes. "The Duke Nukem Forever team, for example, has gone through a lot of staff changes over the years, which can be very tough on everyone -- and keep in mind it's hard to motivate a team under these conditions, too," says Croal.

"If a developer loses a key programmer or lead artist, or wants to accelerate development time on a game, the corporate knee-jerk reaction is to simply throw more money at it and hire additional people," explains Billy Pidgeon, videogame analyst at the IDC technology research firm. "But this can add stress on the team and, ironically, slow down production, because existing developers now have to bring the new programmers up to speed and work on the game, too. It becomes a clusterf*ck, essentially," adds Pidgeon, who worked in game development as a producer at Acclaim and Hi Tech Expressions before becoming an industry analyst.