Well, Nintendo is still guilty. They announced Bayonetta 3 in 2017 then radio silence until 2021 when they showed a trailer then released it in 2022.

Sure. It is okay to talk about whatever a person or company wants. It is also stupid. But, being stupid is is allowed.

Less literally: I think it is generally unadvisable to announce a game multiple years before release. The primary problem is that it starts the clock ticking in fans', heads, which then puts pressure on the devs individually, and the publisher, to get the game to market ASAP. There's enough pressure from the business side, needing to get the game out to generate revenue. They don't also need the social pressure of fan expectations bearing down on them for years and years.

Look no further than Cyberpunk 2077. Announced in 2012, disastrous release in 2020, out of beta in 2022, playable as advertised in 2023.
Did it help to build the hype and inflate their share price? Yes. Did it ruin their reputation and our trust (possibly forever)? Also yes.

Long story short, announcing games which are the far away from release, rarely is a good news for end users. In fact, it does nothing for the customer and it's deliberately created to satisfy short to midterm shareholders' goals.

BTW, CDPR shares still haven't recovered and they've been on 2017/2018 level for 3 years now, but if were an investor before 2021, you could make even 400% on the CP2077 hype and I bet this was the place where the push for the release came from.

This, Lol. So many other actual issues to care about than when a developer decides to announce their videogame.

And honestly, in many cases there's little difference if a game is unannounced or announced, let me use an example, Rockstar with GTA 6, everyone knows Rockstar is making GTA 6, I know Rockstar is making GTA 6, it makes absolutely zero difference to me whether they make a trailer now, a year ago or a year from now, the game is still releasing when it's releasing and the trailer makes no change to that.

Another example would be the countless of games leaked, anyone who follows Xbox news knew that Fable was in development, makes no difference when they decide to put together a trailer as we already knew it was in development. Most people will think "cool trailer" then move on and forget about it as we're swamped with dozens of games actually releasing.

Then when the game in close to release, the marketing cycle will kick up again and the excitement will build, I do not buy the theory that early announcements hurt a games sales that some people say, countless of games announced years in advance, only to go quiet, then to massively kick up the marketing campaign and build excitement again because...that's marketing, Lol.

The film/tv industry announce projects years in advance, many times without even a trailer, they'll just say "so and so is working on this" but it feels like only the gaming industry has people who get weirdly angry about early announcements. To me, they are either "whatever" or they build excitement as I can see what I have to look forward to in the future, especially if it's an IP I love.

And it's also weird too because people will complain about early announcements but at the same time they'll be like "WHERE IS THIS GAME? WHY ISN'T IT ANNOUNCED YET? WHY AREN'T THEY DOING A SEQUEL?" Lol. The early announcements at least can ease those concerns which will become more relevant as videogames take longer and longer to develop (like 4-6 year average now).

Plus it's a hiring tool, which as far as I'm concerned is more important than gamers moaning.

I think what would be cool though is if developers showed more behind the scenes or work in progress stuff over the course of development but I don't know if gamers would be ready for that, they'll lose their shit when a concept art revealed by a developer isn't in the final product or lose their shit at clearly labelled "WORK IN PROGRESS/ALPHA" footage not being pretty enough...

With every new Console reveal, we see the same pattern in the first 6 months. Holding a carrot on a stick with games that are 'just around the corner, promise!'

Obviously to drum up excitement and get a running start selling consoles. Then inevitably (many of) those games are (much) farther away. Every console manufacturer does this.

Edit: Same can be said if a console's sale is starting to stagnate or slip. Same pattern.

A lot of this post is from the perspective of someone who follows every scrap of gaming news, rumours etc. The vast majority of the millions that watch these  trailers do not. Excessively early announcements build false expectations and disappointment in consumers and there's no greater example of this than Xbox's June 2020 event. How many people saw that event expecting that to be the new consoles 1st party line-up for the first 1-2 years of the Xbox Series? They announced 6 1st-party games for Xbox Series at that event and the only one that launched within 3 years was an episodic game. Hellblade 2 was announced even earlier.

If someone bought an Xbox Series based on the games MS showed in June 2020 it would be completely understandable to be pissed that the line-up they promised before it launched still hasn't been delivered after the machine is over 3 years old.

There are much bigger issues in gaming of course, but that doesn't mean we can only discuss the biggest issues and can't give our opinion on this. Early announcements with no indication of when the title will release is anti-consumer to a degree as it can motivate a purchase based on false expectations. MS knew exactly what they were doing before the release of the Xbox Series. They knew they didn't have a good line-up for the first couple of years of the Xbox so they announced titles that were over 4 years away to get people to buy their console anyway. It's possible that this failure to produce the goods they used to sell their machine is one of the reasons that Xbox sales have fallen so drastically this year, people may be tired of waiting.

But I completely agree that early announcements do not hurt a games sales when it finally comes out, I don't think there's anything to indicate this. AS for your final point yes gamers aren't ready for "work in progress" footage. I mean we've seen how people have reacted to stuff like the old GTA VI and Wolverine leaks. People calling them shit based on leaked footage from a build over 4 years before the title is meant to come out. A lot of gamers give zero consideration to it being a work in progress and just say what they see.

Those things had little to do with when it was announced (or not at all). Announced in 2012 but despite that still had massive hype in its release year, the reason it was a disastrous release is because the game was a broken mess which has no relation to when a videogame project is announced but project management. The game also sold amazing still in the first year of release, Lol.

I'd also strongly disagree with the end part of your first sentence that it has ruined their reputation and trust with gamers and I played it on launch, Lol. Gamers forget things so easily, you only need to look at 2023 (and 2022) to see that, CDPR is practically already completely forgiven, Cyberpunk is selling great in 2023 and people are raving about it and CDPR. The hype is back for Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk sequel.

I'd argue a market valuation of $11bn was overvaluing CDPR even if Cyberpunk turned out perfect anyway, at one point they were considered to be worth more than Ubisoft, Lol. But also have to consider their market valuation peaking that high happened during COVID which caused a boost to most videogame companies valuation.

They announced Cyberpunk in 2012 and it had trailers in 2013, 2018 and 2019 but it was CDPR who decided to announce its release for 2020 which also helped soar their valuation, they should have not announced a 2020 date but having said that, I personally think their current valuation is more reasonable than their $11bn valuation, especially since they release only one major game every 5+ years.

I've always argued that CDPR was massively overvalued

I feel called out.

Idk, anecdotal but those are the only people I see complaining about early announcements, Lol.

It depends on the studio as well. You don't have to follow news to know that Rockstar is working on GTA VI for example. There are some studios which the general consumer largely knows that they do. For something like Fable, maybe the general consumer wasn't fully aware but it was an open secret to everyone who followed gaming news even a moderate amount, not as I do, Lol.

I think those who dislike early announcements overestimate how much the casual market cares about it. Most will simply watch a trailer, think "cool" and then move on with their lives, play any number of dozens of games that release every year or continue to play their COD/Fifa for hundreds of hours and completely forget it, Lol. I feel like it's mostly only us who follows news who obsess over where a game is. Nobody is going to care come GTA VI's release when it was announced, as long as it is good and that applies to every single early announcement. Early announcements also don't have to build false expectations if we know nothing about the game itself aside from a vague CG trailer.

I feel like "early announcements" is mixed with a separate complaint for Xbox, I would argue that Xbox would be in a worse position had they not announced many of their projects early, it was exactly because they were in rebuilding mode and had fuck all ready for launch that they had to give consumers some confidence in their brand and the future of Xbox, show a renewed focus, especially after the many doubts that Xbox would stick around. If however, Xbox actually had a strong line-up in 2020 and 2022 then Imho I doubt the vast majority of people would care about when Fable (as an example) was announced because they'd be busy enjoying their new games.

The only things that were actually dated were Halo Infinite and some smaller projects, ultimately Infinite was delayed to 2021 so people knew what the line-up was as Series X launched Nov 2020 and Infinite was delayed in August 2020...You can't really say that Microsoft hid how anaemic their launch line-up was, Lol. Their Holiday 2021 was great though with Infinite, Forza Horizon 5 and Psychonauts 2 and people were focused on that, not on "where is State of Decay 3" but then 2022 happened. I get being "sad" or "disappointed" that some games haven't released yet but I also don't think it's fair to attack developers over it (not what you're doing, what others do) and  I don't think it's worth being overly pissed off about, Lol.

And it's not that we can't discuss one issue because there are bigger issues, I've always hated that argument, Lol. It's more that, Imo, I don't consider this an issue at all, Lmao. It sometimes to me feels like complaining just for the sake of it...Like for example, I'm buying GTA 6 on day one, I fully expect a delay into 2026 but I really don't care, Lol. I'm a huge Mass Effect fan so I was happy when it was announced but since then I've barely thought about it because I don't need to, I'll resume my hype when it's near release.

Speaking as a Fable fan, I love that series and I was one of those I mentioned above of gamers demanding a game be announced, Lmao. I wanted to see the tone/atmosphere they were going for, I just wanted to see Fable again and when it was announced I was like "AWESOME" and then...I moved on, lol. I don't need to think about Fable until the next trailers, I'm so swamped in current videogames that I don't have the time to sit here and complain that Fable still hasn't release yet when I have so many other awesome games to play. Let em cook, I'll play it when I play it.

And like said before, early announcements are often done for hiring purposes, they're as much for hiring as they are for the consumers (if not more) because this industry is extremely secretive and crammed full of NDAs. Some people won't have a clue what they're applying for/working on exactly until they're literally in their in the interview and have signed an NDA, Lol. Developers are gamers just as much as we are and have their own favourites or love of a certain IP. Imagine you're a developer in France, love the Blade IP and have just found out Arkane is working on it, you're more likely to apply there.

The issue here as I see it, in the case of Xbox, is not that they announced stuff early, it's that they had fuck-all ready for 2020/2022 but if they did then I fully believe those things would have distracted most gamers from thinking constantly about "where is XYZ?!" and I don't think the anti-consumer argument can be applied to 3rd party publishers either as they don't have a console to sell to the consumer.

I've seen those GTA VI and Wolverine comments, Lmao. You can watermark "ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA" all over footage and some people will still be like "Lul. Looks shit. Game is doomed" I feel like this happened at one point during Dead Space Remake's development as well but can't remember it exactly what people were moaning about. It can also apply to betas, there's a fine line between feedback and just plain old shitting on a game unnecessarily, I've seen countless games doomed and completely shit on for their graphics during a beta and gamers really don't seem to understand how much polishing happens in the final stages of development.

When I hear about a game or product, my preference is that it’s either soon to be or currently available. Nintendo has been very good with this during this generation (and to a lesser extent in the Wii/DS generation) where they constantly promote new releases and games coming up in the next 1-2 weeks.  On Switch, it’s with the news channel and the EShop—IMO, use the browser version of the EShop, as it’s not clunky/buggy like the Switch OS version… one thing I hope they fix on Switch 2.

The main thing I don’t like about excessively early announcements is that it takes attention away from interesting current games and/or interesting new releases. I understand why a new console might want to pad their early catalogue for advertisement purposes with games being released down the road, especially if their launch window games suck, but hopefully as generational lines blur more and more this will cease to be a problem and therefore end the practice.

I also tend to associate excessive numbers of early game announcements with a failing console. At least from the N64 onward, as the systems plagued with this issue were the aforementioned N64, plus Gamecube, and Wii U.
With old consoles (NES/SNES), when a new game was “announced” in advance, it was because it was because magazines were reporting on a game already out in Japan and was excepted to make its way westward. I remember reading all about Square’s RPGs, and those never officially came out where I was growing up - and usually needed to pay premium to play them (converter + import fees, FF4, for example, cost something like 140 in 1992 USD, which is 300 USD today. If you really wanted the game from Japan, you could import it. But I’m getting off topic.

During the N64 era, Nintendo started announcing all their games in development years in advance, the sole exception was Diddy Kong Racing which was a mere 4 months. On the other side, Sony took a different focus saying things like “We have 200/500 games available right now on PlayStation, and we’re going to focus on showing you the most cool looking ones…” which made Playstation feel very presently in its golden age (200/500 games at the time was a lot, and to scale it to this generation, it would sound like 2000/5000 games). Nintendo’s golden age felt like a promise for the distant future - an age when really awesome games would start pouring out - but it always felt like it was getting further and further away, or a lie, when the promised great games started trickling out a lot later than expected, and not as big or interesting as promised. This went on for about 10 years across two Nintendo generations, until the Wii… when Nintendo started tightening up announcement to release dates from 2-3 years to under 10 months and focusing their attention on newly released games or games that would launch soon (on their weekly Wii/DS shows). Wii felt like a console living in its golden age. Things reverted briefly with the Wii U, it again, always felt like golden age of the console was way in the future - although, many of us began seeing Wii U as a stop-gap console, and that their next console (code named the NX) was where the big things would happen. And it did. Some Switch games have been announced long in advance, but they seem to be mostly related to the Wii U era way of thinking (Metroid Prime and Breath of the Wild 2/Tears of the Kingdom) as almost all new Nintendo games are announced no more than 8 months from their intended launch (so, not factoring in delays), sometimes on the day of release - day of launch announcements are my favourites.

Like Icaro said, films are often announced years in advance. TV Shows as well, I have over a dozen TV Shows that I'm looking forward to watching which aren't anywhere close to release but announced years in advance but I don't ever see complaining about this, Lol. I'm so swamped with other TV Shows that I'm too preoccupied to think about other shows right now!

I'll add them to my list and watch them when they're out and I'm looking forward to them but I don't have to think about them every month, barely even think about them on a yearly basis, only now that it has been mentioned, Lol. Nice to know they're being made though! And I'm looking forward to when they eventually release, if they're bad they're bad, if they're good they're good, early announcement won't change the final quality.

Event Horizon, Battlestar Galactica, Daredevil, Welcome to Derry, Alien, Blade Runner, Spartacus Spinoff, Judge Dredd, God of War, Tomb Raider, Warhammer, Stargate, Fallout, Gears of War, The Dark Tower...List goes on, I know some might be bad, very unlikely all will be bad, I'm not sitting here jumping up and down for years on end in excitement, I'm just going to wait and enjoy the shows I currently watch and enjoy.