Delaying a video game

The following post was written in the wake of us experiencing a game delay on The Occupation. We never found the time to post it, it was a stressful period. You could make the argument that we were possibly hiding from it and instead burying ourselves in our work. Whatever the reason, we wanted to post the article below since the words may resonate with someone that is facing a similar situation in a creative outlet they’re perusing.

Delaying The Occupation was the hardest thing we’ve done this year.

It wasn’t the time we were trying to get our characters’ feet to touch each step when climbing up and down stairs.

Or the frustrations of production when 4 people have a meeting, then leave to work on different things and rejoin to recap only to realise that they’ve all had completely different ideas about what was discussed.

Or when someone truly believes that an issue can be fixed in the next couple of hours, but as the sun starts to rise little progress has been made.

Each day there are hundreds of small questions that get asked and addressed which can provide their own complexities, but delaying a video game has been the hardest to date.

You care about the people you’re designing the game for, you want them to have the best experience possible, but you don’t want to keep them waiting.

You have personal ambition that this isn’t just a game, it’s something that you’ve invested yourself into for the past 4 years.

There’s also the financial implication of an additional 3 months of revenue for the studio that, at this moment in time, you’re not quite sure you can create. But with growing teams and families, people’s mortgage payments and livelihoods depend on it.

However, it feels as though there’s been a shift in tone of how the news of a game being delayed is received.

Or maybe it was never there…

You worry about posting on social media, fearful of the backlash.

You think people will be annoyed, or worse, frustrated and put off from your current and future work.

When we announced, we experienced the opposite.

We experienced nothing but well wishes and kindness.

“Take your time. You’ve worked hard. You’ve got this. It will be ready when you feel it’s ready.”

However we solve the technical development issues,

And the failures in communication we learn from to improve within the team.

And when you release something you’re proud of,

be thankful for a 3-month delay, because it will have built a stronger team.

A team that has created something they’re proud to share.

And a team that can go on to focus on their next title, adding to a body of work they’re proud to say they helped to create.

We want to thank you for all the incredible support in taking away some of the development pressure from us.

The best advice we can give to those facing a similar situation is to just communicate and do what feels right.

It’s simple, straightforward and is advice that’s been shared many times by people smarter than ourselves.

But sometimes that’s the advice you need to hear when facing a difficult decision.

– White Paper Team