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Gabe Newell on why game delays are okay: 'Late is just for a little while. Suck is forever.'
(www.pcgamer.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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But he said that in the context of releasing Half Life 1, back when there was no way to patch a game after release. This isn't the case anymore and it's been proven many times that games can come back from sucking.
A game can, but the reputation of it can't. The reality of it is - it's unacceptable and always have been. Producers have just pushed for releasing buggy crap and the "fix it later" mentality.
I'd generally agree, but one huge exception that comes to mind is No Man's Sky. It feels like its updates get far more attention than most games' just because they did manage to turn it around. Even though it was generally considered "redeemed" years ago, it still gets credit and publicity for its redemption every time there's an update, to the point where I think it does far better today than it would be doing if it had released in the state it was supposed to.
It's not a strategy I'd recommend other companies try to emulate, though. I think Hello Games got very lucky with people letting them redeem No Man's Sky, along with it taking them a lot of extra time and work. It was a phenomenon, not something that can be worked into a strategy.
You only get to make a first impression once, after all.
But that's the thing though right? No man's sky will always be known for sucking at first. Sure it got better, but it did suck. It will forever have that taint of sucking attached to it.
It's better to be remembered as being good from the start.
I think NMS is an exception. If it released today, I think most people would end up feeling that it's just kind of "fine" and it'd die down somewhat quickly. It's managed to get a lot of goodwill because of how they turned it around and I think it gets a lot more publicity and positive attention because of that.