The 2016 Vaporware Awards

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The 2016 Vaporware Awards are out and there are some pretty big names on the list. Star Citizen made the list, as did Kingdom Hearts III and Beyond Good and Evil 2. Anyone have games that you feel should be on the list but aren't?

While the triple-A game industry seems to be having less of a problem with vaporware, we the consumers have gladly inflicted it upon ourselves via crowdfunding. Take Broken Age, the physical edition of which I just received on December 1—nearly five years after my Kickstarter pledge. But it’s not all Kickstarters! There are plenty of traditionally-funded blockbuster games that have been talked up for years but just can’t seem to ship (or even commit to a date). We’re not gonna talk about The Last of Us Part II because that was only just announced, but come on—you know they’re already writing the Very Special Update for the PlayStation Blog explaining that the game’s going to miss the 2019 holiday season and come out in March 2020.
 
Glad star Citizen made the list it will never come out if they keep adding more stuff to it. They should have had s42 out by now at least.
 
The list just hasn't been the same since DNF was finally released and Gabe blew HL3's budget on wings and cheeseburgers.
 
I have to agree that it's not really fair to call Star Citizen vaporware.

Star Citizen deserves it's own distinctive list;

Almost a game, Almost a product

Swing and a didn't quite reach the plate yet

Best unrealized concept

Are we finished being unfinished yet?

:ROFLMAO:
 
This award used to mean something besides being clickbait. The badge of honor that is the vaporware award is no more.
 
I think Roberts is working on the title of having the most games in history added to vaporware lists. ;)

As others have said this game should not be on the vaporware list. It is obviously in development and a playable alpha is in the wild. Maybe dev hell but definitely not vaporware.
 
Sure, you guys have seen me support Star Citizen and I still do since if you follow it development continues in major fashion.

But yes, if you want to call it "dev hell" because of the problems doing it the way they are... sure.

Vaporware? No. It's not a game with no word except a lick and a promise like Duke Nukem Forever, Falcon 4.0 or HL3.
 
pxc said:
The list just hasn't been the same since DNF was finally released and Gabe blew HL3's budget on wings and cheeseburgers.
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No one would still be alive after that many wings and burgers.
 
What's the ratio of promises:delivery though that vaporware entails? Sure, Star Citizen does have some stuff built, but as compared against its promises, I don't think its that much of a stretch to call it vaporware.
 
Didn't Duke Nukem Forever have multiple 'playable' builds that were eventually thrown out over the years?

Star Citizen is definitely pushing people's limits.
 
TwistedAegis said:
What's the ratio of promises:delivery though that vaporware entails? Sure, Star Citizen does have some stuff built, but as compared against its promises, I don't think its that much of a stretch to call it vaporware.
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I think it comes down to perception and people's concept of or definition of vaporware.

I don't think anyone here is claiming Star Citizen has led a healthy and productive development cycle. But some people are a little more "literal" than others and for them, vaporware is software that just never materializes. That isn't really the case with Star Citizen because it has playable elements and they do continue to add to the game. That being said, the promises are legion and the developer's penchant for delay, change, and unending scope just fuel their problems. A standard game in development would not have made such changes and instead would have looked at many of the proposed additions, and engine changes, as something for a patch or Star Citizen 2. They do need to start finalizing product and start getting it out the door.
 
TwistedAegis said:
What's the ratio of promises:delivery though that vaporware entails? Sure, Star Citizen does have some stuff built, but as compared against its promises, I don't think its that much of a stretch to call it vaporware.
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The definition of vaporware has nothing to do with promise to delivery ratio other than zero - as in, nothing was ever released.

By definition, Star Citizen is not vaporware because working gameplay has been released. In an early, incomplete state, yes, but still delivered.

It's more like an Early Access title that may or may not be finished.
 
Guys, the only thing that matters is that the people who paid money for Star Citizen don't feel like they got taken advantage of. As long as they keep thinking that, then everything is ok.

Spectators just don't get it.
 
I wish HL3 was vaporware. That would be a big step from where its at now. Uncle GabeN won't even mention a peep about it, so its basically less than vaporware at this point. :(
 
westrock2000 said:
Guys, the only thing that matters is that the people who paid money for Star Citizen don't feel like they got taken advantage of. As long as they keep thinking that, then everything is ok.

Spectators just don't get it.
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Well that does muddy the water somewhat cause I thought we had a case of just as many Star Citizen "investors" (people who helped this crowd funded development), who feel that they have seen enough progress that they don't feel ripped off. Now are some of them perhaps delusional, fooling themselves? Perhaps. I invested at the lower end, enough that I could play some. I stopped playing cause frankly I didn't find enough content to keep myself entertained well enough. I also didn't try the FPS part of the game and lord knows you don't need that much FPS content to keep a group of fans involved.

So you are partly right, in that people who haven't invested and experienced what is available probably don't get it. But I think you are equal parts wrong in how the investors feel cause I think some are satisfied, whether delusionally so or not.
 
vapor ware used to be something that was plastic kit bash with concept art as the only assts... the duke nukem made the list and gearbox bought the rights and finished it... so the phantom console I think it was called that is vaporware... people buy it and have nothing for their money... if star citizen fails to have the systems it promises at this point is simply is half way done game shoved out the door too soon. Clearly some of the stuff they are working on is working. I can load up 2.6 public and walk around a hanger, a space station, or a town. They are clearly not finished but I can load into the space station walk down to a console spawn a space ship walk out to the space ship and fly around. Star marine realized but they have a big sign on it like the sign on the woman bathroom so when when they have more bathrooms I will try it out.

The thing is vapor ware is supposed to be something that takes your money then fails before you get to play anything. I can log in a play through the combat sims and those are as complete as space invaders is. Maybe they need games that failed to deliver what they promised by horizons which was an mmo years ago or shadow bane and leave mmo's that fail to live up to what they promise grouped with them until they do...

This gives better perspective of how many games launch with most of what they want and then fail to keep players happy...

https://biobreak.wordpress.com/mmo-timeline/
Still not sure if it is the same person that started the site but they do a lot of work to keep the list current.

waiting for them to get finished building the game seems like a better idea then, asking them are we there yet?
 
dR.Jester said:
Star Citizen on the list because some butthurt backer can't play the full game yet.
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"can't play the full game yet" means it's not done. So it qualifies for the list. I'm so old I can remember when "the full game" is what you actually bought.
 
dewbak75 said:
"can't play the full game yet" means it's not done. So it qualifies for the list. I'm so old I can remember when "the full game" is what you actually bought.
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No, it doesn't, because "can't play the full game yet" is not the definition of vaporware. By that logic, every single Early Access title would be called vaporware, but...it isn't, because that's not the definition.
 
vapor ware or not (by definition) when actually we can expect the game to be released? does the complete game (all the FPS module and space sim stuff) will be fully available in 2017? if i remember correctly the game was supposed to come out in 2015.
 
MavericK said:
No, it doesn't, because "can't play the full game yet" is not the definition of vaporware. By that logic, every single Early Access title would be called vaporware, but...it isn't, because that's not the definition.
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So if a game made a demo it's not a vaporware?
 
Semantics said:
So if a game made a demo it's not a vaporware?
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Correct.

Vaporware would be something announced and teased and no reliable source would have ever played or seen it. Same with hardware, what was that stupid game console that was supposed to be the end-all but never came out? Can't remember off the top of my head.
 
Darunion said:
Correct.

Vaporware would be something announced and teased and no reliable source would have ever played or seen it. Same with hardware, what was that stupid game console that was supposed to be the end-all but never came out? Can't remember off the top of my head.
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Phantom console?

Anyway, folks can say what they want about Star Citizen (and, oh, they sure do, at every opportunity) but the term "vaporware" just doesn't apply here.

I have barely anything invested in the game, but I'd still like to see it succeed. Wing Commander is one of my all-time favorites.
 
Darunion said:
Correct.

Vaporware would be something announced and teased and no reliable source would have ever played or seen it. Same with hardware, what was that stupid game console that was supposed to be the end-all but never came out? Can't remember off the top of my head.
Click to expand...
Yeah but then how is that demo any different from a hardware demo, not actually a finished product. If star citizen never is completed and goes away doesn't that move it to the same category of games that made demos but never made a retail product?

What about things like Nintendo's 64DD which was only released in japan for a short time even though it was announced for the NA market? Vaporware or not?

because irrc games like duke nukem forever had demos years before take two took over the project and actually made a retail product out of it. Would it have no been vaporware status in between that period? Irrc TF2 had like a 10 year development cycle and i remember thinking of it as vaporware in the early days of CS.

Granted it's not pure vaporware at that point at consumers interacted with it on some level but it's not exactly the promised product.

Then again i doubt "development hell" is as attractive as a title as vaporware. One is more of what the developers are feeling and the other is what the consumer is feeling.
 
Technically Duke Nukem Forever is not vaporware because it actually got released.

In the interim when it was "in development", I guess you could say it was vaporware at the time but ultimately, it's not.

In the case of Star Citizen, we already have playable, albeit incomplete builds, so it's not vaporware. Development hell? Maybe. Early access? Sure.

Vaporware implies nothing is ever released.
 
Semantics said:
Yeah but then how is that demo any different from a hardware demo, not actually a finished product. If star citizen never is completed and goes away doesn't that move it to the same category of games that made demos but never made a retail product?

What about things like Nintendo's 64DD which was only released in japan for a short time even though it was announced for the NA market? Vaporware or not?

because irrc games like duke nukem forever had demos years before take two took over the project and actually made a retail product out of it. Would it have no been vaporware status in between that period? Irrc TF2 had like a 10 year development cycle and i remember thinking of it as vaporware in the early days of CS.

Granted it's not pure vaporware at that point at consumers interacted with it on some level but it's not exactly the promised product.

Then again i doubt "development hell" is as attractive as a title as vaporware. One is more of what the developers are feeling and the other is what the consumer is feeling.
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If you really break it down, vaporware is really just a stupid label anyways. Saying that something will never come out is not guaranteed. IP could get bought out and then produced, until the human race is extinct and all forms of our history destroyed, 'never' isn't the correct term. 64dd would not have been vaporware if it were released, selective markets are a whole different thing. There are tons of japanese games that aren't released here, so would they all be the same?

I think if we can just get rid of dumb labels, conversations would be simpler imo.
 
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