AAA Games Are Announced Early For Fear Of Being Canceled, Developer Says

Have you ever noticed that some of the largest AAA games on the market are announced earlier than before? How it always feels that when a big game is revealed, it’s still five, six, or seven years off at least? It’s something that many wonder why and now one prominent developer is giving his insight into what that reason could be.

Mark Darrah is known for being the creator of the Dragon Age series and is currently working as a consultant on the new Dragon Age: The Veilguard. He also has his own YouTube channel where he recently addressed the topic of why AAA games take so long to release.

While the nearly 25-minute video is worth a full watch for the insight from Darrah, one thing he said that really stood out has to do with a potential fear within the studios making the games.

“There might be reasons why it’s important for the studio or the publisher to have that game in the public consciousness,” Darrah said.

“It might be because the publisher’s slate is a little weak, and they want the public to remember it still has important games in its back pocket. It might be because the studio wants the game announced because they’re worried the publisher might kill it otherwise.”

He added that it’s not usually the best strategy for building up attention and hype for the game.

Aside from that possible fear, Darrah says that just because a studio says it’s working on a game, that doesn’t mean it’s full effort or focus is on that game when it’s announced.

“Studios can kind of be misleading on this front, because they’ll say things like ‘we’ve started work on Elder Scrolls 6’, or they might even a trailer for the game even though the current team size is under 10 people,” he said.

“So they’re giving the impression that this is parallel development, that the team is working on this game, when in fact it’s a few people having a few meetings, and not much is being done.”

There’s also the likelihood that when games are 10 or so years apart, no work is likely being done on that game for the first few years.

On top of this fear, other factors that go into it are things like the size of the game, the team working on it, a focus on more intricate features, and more.

You can watch his full video on the topic below. Again, it’s highly recommended.

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