Or perhaps they're caught in a time-hiccup, destined to relive the same moments over and over again - like a really pathetic version of Groundhog Day with less Bill Murray and more conference calls.
According to the internet (I saw it on
joysiq first), Ubisoft has delayed
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier until Q1 of 2012. If you'll remember, we went through this exact scenario last year. In fact we're only 6 days away from that anniversary (another
joystiq article). The excuse is even the same: to avoid holiday competition. Lame. Maybe if they didn't insist on delaying their games past the point of their relevancy, they'd have less to worry about from said competition.
As you might have read previously,
I HATE GAME DELAYS. But even worse than a standard game delay is this nonsense that Ubisoft seems to get a secret thrill out of pulling. They delay a ****-load of games a year, and often delay the same game multiple times. Does anyone remember Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway? I do. I love that franchise but the last game got the same treatment
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is getting. By the time Hell's Highway came out, its graphic engine was out-dated and its main new gameplay feature (sticky cover), trendy at the time of announcement, was regarded as a terrible cliche. Not surprisingly, that game is considered the worst of the series. I love the Ghost Recon franchise just as much (GRAW2 is one of my all time favorites) and would hate for
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to suffer the same fate.
Look, I like Ubisoft, they make good games (putting out the great Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood only a year after ACII was especially impressive), but their "like it's a bodily function" approach to game delays is bad for games and gamers. As time goes on those interminably delayed games become obsolete. The only way around that is to constantly reinvent them (see Splinter Cell: Conviction), but that costs money and delaying a game for strictly monetary reasons, then spending more money on it doesn't make sense. So when the game finally comes out, it's dated and mediocre, it sells less and gamers are robbed of a quality title. Those are all bad things, are they not? So why does Ubisoft always go down this road?
