DayZ creator calls to 'normalize delaying games,' that consumers can show Xbox and Sony 'that delays are okay' and, oh, 'Personally: don't preorder games, folks. Commercially: please preorder games'

Dean Hall, creator of DayZ and CEO of RocketWerkz, has a message for the world: let's all be more chill about game delays. Especially devs who, Hall reckons, can often work themselves into far too much of a tizz about avoiding delays, sometimes to the detriment of the final game.

Hall's remarks came as part of a recent AMA in which he and several other RocketWerkz devs fielded questions from fans and curious onlookers. "Games cost a lot of money to make. Timing makes a tremendous difference to the cost of a game, so there can be huge impacts with delays releasing a game," he wrote. "Players want quality and certainty, but it is my belief that developers latch onto this and get 'target fixation' about launches."

He reckons that, sure, some of that fixation is about concrete finances, but a lot of it isn't. "Some of this is because of revenue pressures, but much of it is wrapped up in perception." Dev fears about disappointing players or exiting the hype cycle with a delay, says Hall, come with their own consequences.

"Failure to delay also leads to 'crunch culture'. So I am here today on a mission—let us normalize delaying games. You as consumers have the power to make it clear to platform holders (Xbox, PlayStation) that delays are okay.

"I think most delays happen due to a failure to hit quality," wrote Hall in a later answer to a fan question. "And even when devs want to provide quality, they don't have the money they can spend to hit it. So they try and hide it, or ignore it. This is what happened with the ICARUS launch and we paid the price of going to Mixed [Steam rating]."

Hall referenced RocketWertz' own history of delays in his call to action, noting that the Dangerous Horizons expansion for Icarus "has been delayed many times since we first announced it when the game launched."

Also delayed: Icarus' console version, which he adds is "available on PlayStation and Xbox stores as a preorder" before cheekily adding "(personally: don't preorder games, folks. commercially: please preorder games, as it's the only way PlayStation/Xbox notice us)." Such is the doublethink capitalist subjectivity forces us into, folks.

As Shigeru Miyamoto famously did not ever actually say: a delayed game is only delayed for a time, but a bad game is bad forever. I'd say Hall's entirely correct to say we should, well, perhaps not welcome (it's always a bit sad to wait for your treat), but respect delays. As to whether our combined might can convince Microsoft and Sony to let devs punt games as much as they need until they're worthy of release? I'd like to live in that world, but I'm not convinced we do.